PerspectiveWhat to Make of New U.S. Actions Against Foreign Telecoms
Recent moves by the administration mark another concrete step in the U.S. campaign to limit the digital and economic influence of Chinese telecommunications companies both within and outside U.S. borders. Justin Sherman writes that “The moves also demonstrate that current American efforts to limit the influence of the Chinese telecommunications sector are much broader than just the well-publicized targeting of Chinese telecom giant Huawei.”
On 4 April, President Trump signed an executive order on “Establishing the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector.” Just five days later, the Department of Justice issued a press release detailing interagency action on a similar issue. Justin Sherman writes in Just Security that the “interested” agencies the press release refers to as being involved in the recommendations, as specified in a footnote, were the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Defense, State, and Commerce and the United States Trade Representative.
These two actions have significance on their own. But taken collectively, they mark another concrete step in the U.S. campaign to limit the digital and economic influence of Chinese telecommunications companies both within and outside U.S. borders. The moves also demonstrate that current American efforts to limit the influence of the Chinese telecommunications sector are much broader than just the well-publicized targeting of Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
And where the Huawei saga was characterized by a confused messaging campaign by different components of the U.S. government that yielded extremely limited results, there is an opportunity with these recent moves for the U.S. government to think much more carefully about how it communicates the national security risks posed by foreign telecommunications companies and the reasons for taking actions against specific firms.
He concludes that “The recent executive order and the recent recommendation against China Telecom appear to be a step in the right direction, a far more nuanced approach than was taken with Huawei and 5G networks. But…. the fact remains that many other broader questions have yet to be resolved about the administration’s current thinking on supply-chain security strategy (for example, the question about trustworthiness criteria). What is clear, though, is that scrutiny applied by the government to foreign telecommunications companies is not going away anytime soon—and that this goes well beyond Huawei.”
