Trump Push Against Huawei in Europe Falling Flat, AEI Experts Say

The administration’s push to persuade Europe to avoid Huawei equipment (see 1902260016) is falling flat “with unknown future consequences,” American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Claude Barfield blogged Monday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited European capitals last week raising concerns but “received a mixed reception at best,” Barfield said. “Whatever the overall lack of credibility of the Trump administration on a myriad of domestic and foreign policy issues ... 5G technology, and the stunning new technological world it will underpin, does present cybersecurity challenges far beyond those of 2G, 3G, and 4G,” he said: "Obama administration officials agree with the Trump administration” on Huawei. It has about a third of the EU telecom market, Barfield said. “There is as yet no European-wide policy for 5G telecoms equipment, so each nation (and each company) has gone its own way,” Barfield said. “European telecoms operators … have a strong interest in competitive pricing. They have certainly benefited from having a technological giant such as Huawei facing off against the local European companies.” European carriers view Huawei 5G as “more sophisticated and often cheaper than comparable kits from Ericsson and Nokia” (see 1902250016), Barfield said. Lack of evidence Huawei is doing anything wrong “has been highlighted by other governments,” AEI Visiting Fellow Shane Tews blogged Tuesday: “Some European governments have suggested the US has ulterior motives in what the Europeans consider to be a trade dispute.” Equipment used for 5G must be reliable and resilient, Tews said. “A manufacturer with questionable trustworthiness that may play a role in state-sponsored espionage doesn’t fit these characteristics.”