The Trump regime has already delayed their decision to prohibit American companies from selling equipment to Chinese-owned telecommunications giants Huawei once, but now they're doing it again.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced this morning that export controls have been delayed for another 90 days and his rationale for the delay is quite revealing.
The decision permits Huawei to continue buying products from American companies to support its existing customers. It was made in part to minimize disruption in parts of rural America that rely on relatively inexpensive Huawei equipment to carry wireless service in remote areas, Commerce officials said.
"It is another 90 days for the U.S. telecom companies," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Fox Business Network. "Some of the rural companies are dependent on Huawei. So we're giving them a little more time to wean themselves off."
It's not being covered or framed this way, but this is another subtle admission that Trump's policies are ultimately worse for American companies and consumers, not Chinese companies.
In this specific case, American companies are being told that they cannot sell their products to Huawei because their products somehow pose a threat to national security. And yet those American products are being used by Huawei here inside the United States, so where is the danger?
As I've often said, I'm not qualified to say if Huawei poses as much of a threat to national security as the Trump regime claims it does, but the casual napkin math doesn't add up here.
If selling American goods to Huawei is as much of a threat to national security as they say, why has the decision to add Huawei to the blacklist or "entity list" been delayed for so long? Where's the urgency? Is the sky falling, or is it not?
I believe sanctions were imposed on Huawei for political reasons, not for economic or security reasons, and the Trump regime has tried to reverse-engineer a justification for it after the fact. I believe Trump demanded another lever he could pull against China and this is what his lackeys gave him. And now they're picking up the pieces and delaying sanctions for as long as they can.
It can be true that China's far reach into the global telecommunications industry is a long-term threat to national security and true that that's not the real reason why Trump called for sanctions.