ArcaMax

On May 14, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick received a letter written by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) -- and co-signed by 11 other senators and four members of the House.

The letter is a big political punch with strategic information purpose.

Cotton chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and Risch the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Their letter's first sentences: "We write in support of the Commerce Department's investigation of TP-Link, a (mainland Chinese -- Beijing) state-sponsored networking equipment company, and urge you to take swift action to prohibit further sales of TP-Link networking products in the United States. TP-Link's deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), use of predatory pricing to eliminate trusted U.S. alternatives, and role in embedding foreign surveillance and destructive capabilities into our networks render it a clear and present danger."

To clarify: TP-Link's products threaten you and your family's freedom and existence. Why? TP-Link devices enable intimate surveillance and pinpoint attacks on you by name and address, using home, family and personal communications devices and digital equipment.

Concept: Target the micro-digital and energy worlds of individual American households, by the millions.

Now the math: Multiply micro by millions. Beijing seeds digital confusion and psychological fear without explosions. Sun Tzu smiles.

The historical record is definitive. Beijing's "Trojan stuff" can spy on you. Then -- at a Pearl Harbor moment -- the Trojan Horse stuff shutdowns or co-opts the computers and communications of a hundred million Americans.

Fantasy? No. Cotton's letter describes what his Intelligence Committee knows to be dangerous fact: "Chinese state actors have exploited TP-Link small and home office (SOHO) networking devices -- including Wi-Fi routers, cellular gateways, and mobile hotspots -- to wage cyber-attacks in the United States. CCP agents commonly exploit SOHO routers because those systems have ideal bandwidth and computing power for sustained cyber activities but lack additional layers of security common in enterprise networks."

Warning: Your digital equipment could conceivably become a CCP cyberwarfare platform -- all because you bought TP-Link's less expensive CCP-subsidized equipment.

Trump Administration 2's Commerce Department is already wise to TP-Link. Trump Administration 1's Commerce, State, Treasury and Defense Departments were wise to the CCP's Huawei gambit. From 2017 to 2023, I wrote several columns about the threat Huawei's malgear presented to everything from electrical grids to even digital controllers in hydro-electric dams.

The acronym is SCADA: supervisory control and data acquisition.

Beijing messages the dam's SCADA: Open gate and release the flood.

Fears of surprise attacks using hidden control mechanisms drove opposition to Huawei's 5G "next generation" wireless communication systems, which Huawei claimed could connect cellphones, computers and the "internet of things" ("things" could include your doorbell and the traffic lights in Chicago).

In August 2020, Trump 1 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described Huawei as "an arm of the CCP's surveillance state."

We were already preparing defenses. In April 2020, Trump 1 formulated the "Clean Network Initiative." It was a comprehensive attempt to protect the privacy and information of American citizens and corporations "from aggressive intrusions by malign actors."

What happened to Clean Network during the Biden administration?

Good question. On Jan. 25, 2021, Biden press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden's new administration starts "from an approach of patience as it relates to our relationship with China." She then unloaded a dictionary's worth of jargon, promising consultations and an "interagency process" review in order to "take a multilateral approach to engaging with China."

Why? The Biden Administration was sold on solar power. The Green New Deal was a Biden Holy Grail. And China manufactured solar panels!

Earlier this month, Bloomberg, Reuters and several engineering websites reported that "hidden" Chinese "kill switches" had been discovered in numerous solar panels on American solar farm arrays.

CyberSecurityIntelligence.com reported that the hidden (Trojan) switches were 'cellular radios ... embedded within power inverters manufactured by Chinese companies and sold to US power generators. ... Tampering with this type of equipment allows China the power to trigger blackouts across the West, and could be a way of destroying the grid."

Potential strategic impact, as calculated in Beijing: U.S. reaction to a Chinese attack on Taiwan or South Korea is delayed because of energy chaos in the Lower 48.

Cotton and Risch want to end this vulnerability.

========

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

----

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate, Inc.