The US and UK, alongside several other European countries, have been dogged in their efforts to protect their telecoms infrastructure from what they see as prospective attacks from China. These fears reached a peak in 2020, when the UK and Europe chose to ban “high-risk vendors” Huawei and ZTE from the RAN for fear than the Chinese government would exert control of the tech firms and override foreign communication systems. In the intervening years, international governments have been increasingly retreating behind their borders and seeking to assert firm control of their own security, data and supply chains. As we land in 2026, in a second and more aggressive Trump presidency, the commitment to putting “America First” is beginning to destabilize…