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On Monday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency will vote on an order to ban American telecommunications companies from using federal subsidies to purchase equipment from Huawei or ZTE, the two most prominent Chinese providers.
The proposal comes as politicians on Capitol Hill continue to scrutinize American companies that do business in China, like Activision Blizzard and even the National Basketball Association. If approved, any telecom networks that currently use subsidies from the Universal Service Fund to purchase equipment would not be allowed to use the funding to purchase any company “that poses a national security risk.”
“The concern is that hostile foreign actors could use hidden…