Donald Trump warns Boris Johnson against giving Huawei keys to Britain’s 5G network

Boris Johnson has been warned he is on course for a diplomatic war with Donald Trump over the Huawei deal.

Boris Johnson hosts Chinese New Year celebrations outside 10 Downing Street. Picture: Getty Images

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been warned that he is on course for a diplomatic war with Donald Trump and a furious cabinet row over plans to hand Huawei, the Chinese telecoms firm, access to Britain’s 5G phone network.

The US President told Mr Johnson on Friday night (Saturday AEDT) that giving a green light to the deal would be a grave threat to national security — risking a split in trans-Atlantic relations that threatens to overshadow Friday’s Brexit celebrations, which the Prime Minister has been working towards for three years.

Mr Trump is understood to have suggested to Mr Johnson that Britain and the US build an alternative to Huawei together. But UK officials believe that would take too long.

Three US senators, led by the former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, have taken the unprecedented step of writing to the National Security Council urging ministers not to open the UK’s sensitive new telecoms network to the technology giant, which has close links to Chinese intelligence.

They spoke out after US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Saturday launched a carrot-and-stick offensive, branding the Huawei deal a threat to “critical” infrastructure while offering to “dedicate a lot of resources” to a US-UK trade deal this year if Britain fell into line.

The Huawei decision, expected on Tuesday, is set to provoke a furious cabinet row. One source has compared it to the coronavirus sweeping the world: “Huawei is next week’s Chinese virus”.

British Home Secretary Priti Patel and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace are “on the warpath” amid claims that Whitehall officials have “bounced” Mr Johnson into letting Huawei build “non-core” parts of the network.

One senior official said Huawei would be “excluded from sensitive locations” such as Westminster and the Royal Navy bases in Faslane, Devonport and Portsmouth.

In a letter co-ordinated by Senator Rubio, who lost the 2016 Republican nomination to Mr Trump, three US senators claim the integrated nature of Britain’s 5G network “eliminates” Mr Johnson’s argument that Huawei will be confined to the “edges” of the network.

The letter, also signed by Republicans Tom Cotton and John Cornyn, warns: “The company’s actions show a clear record of predatory and problematic behaviour” and concludes that it is “in the best interest of the United Kingdom, the US-UK special relationship, and the health and wellbeing of a well-functioning market for 5G technologies to exclude Huawei”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also in the UK this week to lobby the government to abandon Huawei. But ministers are concerned that Cabinet Secretary and National Security Adviser Mark Sedwill is ignoring America’s concerns in order to push the decision through.

“He has tried to stitch everything up in advance before ministers have their say,” said one source. “People like Priti will not go down without a fight.”

Security officials insist they have received assurances from US spy chiefs that they will not cut off intelligence, despite the threats to do so by Mr Trump and his political team.

According to senior Whitehall sources, representatives of Huawei will join Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan in making the announcement on Tuesday — sparking fears that the telecoms giant “could go rogue” and publicly hit back at claims made about the perceived security threat linked to the deal. The government is also preparing for a backlash from MPs, with at least one ministerial aide threatening to resign.

Writing for The Sunday Times, the Conservative MP Bob Seely, who is in the race to become chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, claims Huawei is “a front for the Chinese communist state”.

“Let us hope we don’t regret our refusal to say, ‘no way, Huawei’. I fear by the time we see the real cost, in the decades to come, it may be too late.”

The Sunday Times