China may have used Huawei to disrupt American nukes – CNN
The US government has stalled in its efforts to remove Huawei telecom equipment that the FBI claims could have spied on and disrupted communications at US military bases, including those housing nuclear missiles, CNN reported on Saturday.
Amid a broad crackdown on Chinese technology under the Trump administration, Congress approved $1.9 billion in funding in 2019 to remove Huawei and ZTE telecom equipment across the US. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) told lawmakers last week that stripping American networks of this Chinese gear would cost between $4.7 and $4.98 billion.
Much of this equipment remains in place, and although the administration of President Joe Biden has largely continued the efforts of his predecessor, Donald Trump, to purge the US of Chinese communications technology, a Commerce Department probe into Huawei’s activities is progressing slowly, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, this technology may have posed an acute security risk to the US, Reuters reported on Thursday. FCC commissioner Brendan Carr told the news outlet that cell phone towers around Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base – which controls several missile sites in the US – used Huawei technology, as did two other sites in Nebraska and Wyoming.