As Trump advances America’s telecom fight, some senators would hand China the win

Whoever controls the telecom networks controls the world’s data. Whoever controls the data holds enormous economic, military, and political power worldwide.

The Chinese Communist Party has a high-tech imperial plan to dominate global telecommunications the way it is hurtling to dominate artificial intelligence.

That is why President Donald Trump has declared AI dominance to be a “core, vital national interest” – an interest of such gravity that America’s survival depends on it. And for that, we are in a telecom race with China.

Months ago, the Trump administration approved a merger between two American telecom infrastructure companies, HPE and Juniper, finding it necessary to protect the U.S. from the world’s largest telecom infrastructure company: Huawei.

Huawei is building the CCP’s worldwide telecom empire. It controls over 30% of the globe’s telecom infrastructure. It is one of the dominant players in 5G wireless technology and intends to dominate 6G.

It serves, and is served by, the CCP and its party-controlled People’s Liberation Army. Its networks are instruments of the CCP’s sprawling global spy machinery. Any country using Huawei technology was compromised.

That is why the Department of Defense and Congress effectively banned Huawei from the country.

No single American telecom infrastructure company could compete with Huawei on its own worldwide. That is why Trump backed the HPE-Juniper merger, and last week issued National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 8, “Winning the 6G Race.”

“It is the policy of the United States to lead the world in 6G development,” NSPM-8 says. The merger was essential to U.S. national strategy.

Some politicians throw up roadblocks against competing with CCP interests.

Shortly before Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont tried to halt the construction of AI data centers nationwide, Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and others moved against Huawei competitors. They tried to convince the public that Trump’s policy effort to challenge Huawei worldwide was a “backroom deal” that the White House made to appease big businesses and the lobbyists they employ.

Sanders and Booker are not on record ever criticizing Huawei. Once in 2019, Booker did sign a bipartisan letter about Huawei, but these letters are standard fare that few senators even bother to read. The record shows that Booker himself said nothing against Huawei. Warren, who also signed the letter, remained silent about Huawei for six years.

With the second Trump administration settling into place in early 2025, Warren positioned herself to get tougher than Trump. In a February hearing, she urged the Trump team to clamp down on Huawei – only to turn around and join Booker in opposing the Trump-backed merger that would challenge the Chinese giant.

Those politicians had gone along with the Biden administrations line about the CCP, that “they’re not competition for us,” and even worse, “they’re not bad folks, folks!”

To Sanders and Booker, the CCP is benign. To Warren, it’s another stage in political theater.

They have repeatedly criticized efforts to confront Beijing through tariffs, supply-chain realignment, and industrial competition, even as the CCP heavily subsidizes and shields its own firms. Any challenge to the Chinese Communists, in their view, is a threat to American jobs or a shady deal among cronies that won’t benefit the country.

That excuse completely unraveled this month.

December statistics show that parts of HPE’s business have surged since last summer’s Juniper acquisition, bringing it roughly on par with Huawei in certain submarkets.

That’s fast progress.

When considering the U.S. is going against the CCP’s opaque telecom infrastructure builder that builds and executes the power of the Chinese regime for a worldwide power grab, HPE is making a remarkable achievement.

Even better news is that Huawei’s telecom dominance is also slipping. Slowing growth in China and increasing skepticism of CCP intentions abroad have weakened the company’s momentum just as American competitors gain strength.

Conveniently, the HPE merger has positioned the American telecom infrastructure to expand further in Europe. After Trump’s many years of tough love to press them to bear the weight of their own defense, European governments have grown increasingly cautious about relying on Huawei for critical infrastructure. Although Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia rank as numbers 2 and 3 under Huawei in the world’s top 5 telecom infrastructure companies, Europe is actively searching for more partners at scale.

The White House recognizes that blocking American firms from achieving scale while China subsidizes its own industry would be the equivalent of unilateral disarmament.

For his entire political life, Sanders has pushed for American unilateral disarmament. In the case of Huawei, Booker and Warren are on record as disarming the United States against Communist China’s high-tech imperial expansion.