House Foreign Affairs Committee Vice Chair Castro Says Huawei Poses a National Security Threat
*By Justin Chermol*
The newly appointed vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), said he is "absolutely" concerned that Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei poses a threat to national security in an interview on Cheddar Tuesday.
"I do have that concern," Castro told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin. He noted that he helped push a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act last year to prevent government grants or loans being used to pay for Huawei services.
The Department of Justice unsealed two separate indictments on Monday against the company and its CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in December. The cases claim the company and its leaders attempted to steal trade secrets from rival T-Mobile, promised bonuses to employees in exchange for intel on competitors, and sought to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.
"With China, our overarching strategy has to be to respect them when they compete, but also to stop them when they cheat," he said.
Castro is particularly disturbed by prospect of Huawei lifting T-Mobile's technology for its own gain.
"What you see with China is the outright theft of trade secrets and technology and then taking that technology, in this case from T-Mobile, and using it for the benefit of Chinese companies without ever doing any of the innovation or the hard work ー or spending the money in terms of research or development to understand it themselves," he said.
The indictments may coincide with trade talks between the U.S. and Chinese officials, but Castro said that the meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday are unrelated to the charges leveled against Huawei.
"We should be able to separate out some sort of cheating or malfeasance from what we do in terms of talking about trade," he said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/rep-joaquin-castro-talks-mueller-probe-huawei-charges-and-more).
Markets were pointing mostly lower to end the week as investors reacted to the threat of a Covid resurgence in Europe. Jeff Schulze, Investment Strategist at ClearBridge Investments joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss Friday's pre-market activity.
A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit against financial services platform Robinhood following the meme stock saga that swept the investment world. The judge said it found no wrongdoing on Robinhood's part after the platform halted trading on popular meme stocks Gamestop and AMC.
Jill and Carlo are back to cover the latest in the Rittenhouse trial, new information on the origins of Covid, return-to-office and more.
JOIN US FOR THE YOUTUBE WATCH PARTY @ 9aET: http://www.youtube.com/cheddarnow
The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Uber after it was discovered that disabled people were being disproportionately affected by extra “wait time” fees. Attorney Jonathan Bell joined Cheddar to discuss.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has been accused by the EU of manufacturing a migration crisis along his border with Poland. But, even as tensions appear to be stabilizing at the moment, Ali Noorani, the president and CEO of National Immigration Forum and the host of the "Only in America" podcast spoke to Cheddar about the ongoing danger to the migrants who hail from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. "What is going to happen to folks who are in Belarus who came from these countries? Is Lukashenko going to provide them asylum and protection in Belarus, or are they going to continue to be political pawns in a geopolitical battle," he said. "Real people's lives are being put at great risk."
A group of crypto investors has come together to raise millions of dollars in the hopes of owning a rare piece of the U.S. Constitution. According to the crypto group, "Constitution DAO" It is time to put the constitution in the hands of the people. CEO and Founder of Metaversal Yossi Hasson, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Polarization is among the defining traits of American politics in the 21st century. Sometimes it seems like the only thing we can all agree on is the fact that we don't really agree on anything. But those divisions don't just stop at whether you vote red or blue.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that rather than just two political buckets, we have nine. The "2021 political typology" as it's called distinguishes between different ideological subsets in the Democratic and Republican party. It encompasses everyone from the loudest revolutionary lefties, to the loudest insurrection apologists on the right.
Andrew Daniller, research associate at the Pew Research Center, joins None of the Above to discuss.
Tanya Snyder, transportation reporter at Politico, joins None of the Above with J.D. Durkin to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure law, what it means for the electric vehicle industry and whether Democrats will be able to capitalize on the legislative victory ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Heading into 2022, the eyes of political nerds like us are fixed on statehouses across the country. State legislatures are in the process of taking the data from the 2020 census and using it to draw new congressional districts. The process has major implications for midterms, as Republicans could retake the majority just by gerrymandering enough seats into their column. In Maryland, state level Democrats are considering several maps, one of which would completely draw out the only Republican from the state in Congress.
Bruce DePuyt, senior reporter at Maryland Matters, and Helen Brewer, legal analyst at Princeton's Electoral Innovation Lab, join Cheddar Politics to discuss.
