Trump's Moves Could Cripple the Entire World Instantly — What's Happening?

The administration of Donald Trump’s plan to ban interconnections between United States (US) telecommunications operators and Chinese-owned telecommunications companies is forecast to have a major impact. The global communications network could reportedly be crippled because of the ruling. The FCC is known to have proposed a ban on interconnections with companies such as China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Telecom. The authority stated that each company poses a national security risk. China Unicom said the ruling would harm US companies with significant business interests and supply chains in China. The ban is also said to affect networks worldwide. “Chinese-funded telecommunications operators serve as the main gateway for communications traffic flowing between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies,” said China Unicom, as reported by Reuters. “A blanket ban on interconnections with these entities would fragment a critical segment of the global communications network,” the company added. The trade group representing US operators, USTelecom, opposes the proposal to revoke interconnection authorisations. It argues this would cause a greater impact on services in the country, such as forcing the use of communications with less responsible parties, creating uncertainty in normal commercial and operational communications, and disrupting technical safeguards. “The rules could create pressure to avoid the normal international routing and exchange relationships that global communications require,” USTelecom explained. The FCC did not immediately provide a comment on this matter. The FCC ban is not only related to interconnections with telecommunications service providers. It also prohibits connections with companies that install equipment from suppliers on the list, including Huawei and ZTE. Last April, the FCC also planned to ban Chinese telecommunications companies with data centres in the US, known as Points of Presence, from connecting with other companies. This would effectively force those Chinese companies to cease operating the data centres.