As the Trump administration prioritizes winning the trade war against China, conservative leaders are asking Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Gail Slater to remove antitrust challenges that they argue hamstring the United States’ ability to compete with Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party in the global telecom market.
The primary issue is the DOJ’s challenge to the merger between Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks, which predates both Bondi and Slater. Although Huawei holds 30 percent of the global telecom market and the next American competitor has just six percent, the Justice Department held up a merger between these two Silicon Valley mainstays. Conservative critics say that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is the primary beneficiary of this suit, which is containing America’s global presence in the telecom market, especially in 5G.
Col. Rob Maness, a former U.S. Air Force combat veteran who was a member of the Trump campaign’s Veterans and Military Families for Trump Coalition, argued that the U.S. cannot afford to pass up this opportunity to challenge Huawei on the global scale.
Maness wrote:
Most defense leaders and U.S. policymakers view Huawei as a commercial extension of the CCP. Intelligence chiefs, including the directors of the CIA and FBI, have warned Americans against using Huawei products, warning that the company could conduct “undetected espionage” via backdoors in its wireless networking equipment. An FBI investigation even found that Huawei equipment can be used to disrupt U.S. military communications, including those related to America’s nuclear arsenal.
Writing for The Hill, Rob Joyce, who served on Trump’s National Security Council, noted, “The solution to the growing gap is not to pour taxpayer dollars into the telecom industry but to allow Huawei’s challengers to arise organically from the free market.”
“We still have decisive advantages, but only if we unleash the full strength of our American companies,” he wrote. “The Department of Justice needs to remember this lesson, as they recently filed suit to block the merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.”
Michael O’Rielly, who worked to contain Huawei when he served as a commissioner on the Trump FCC, argued that the European Union — which is historically one of the most socialist, anti-business entities when it comes to mergers — approving the merger demonstrates just how radical the DOJ’s challenge to the HPE-Juniper merger is:
Consider also that DOJ’s staff analysis is not infallible. Every other regulator except one that has examined the same set of circumstances has signed off on the deal. That includes the United Kingdom and the European Union Commission, which has been no friend of U.S. companies or mergers. Since DOJ is known as a leader with the most resources to review merger applications, seeing the usual laggards in merger review go first should be telling.
Even some of President Trump’s top political advisors have taken note. Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk highlighted “the pre-Pam Bondi-confirmed Justice Department’s attempt to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s acquisition of Juniper, which would create a equipment powerhouse to compete with CCP-subsidized market leader Huawei” as a textbook example of DOJ overreach. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski also referenced the HPE-Juniper deal in passing when discussing the need to end the World Trade Organization and increase America’s ability to compete with China.
Bondi has already begun directing the Justice Department to dismiss some of the lawsuits that predate her tenure, but the timing for a decision on this suit remains unclear.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
