President Trump this week signed a fresh executive order which ostensibly will keep the US bulk power system safe from foreign adversaries, but is the order really another trade weapon in disguise? It talks about foreign adversaries creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the US electricity systems which support its defense, emergency services, economy, and way of life. You may remember that in May 2019 the US experienced its first malicious “cyber event” which was supposed to have “disrupted” grid operations using a simple denial of service attack – which threw this idea into the spotlight. A salutary lesson in how grids can talk themselves into stopping was also delivered last august in the UK when the National Grid said that…