Last Updated on February 23, 2021
National File has obtained a statement from AT&T in which the American telecom giant defends doing business with the genocidal Chinese regime, justifying it with its unprecedented profit margins.
As National File exclusively reported, AT&T pressured the Trump administration not to put China Telecom, a communist government-owned company, on the official Entity List, a blacklist of companies not allowed to do business in the United States.
Former Commerce Department Undersecretary Corey Stewart told National File, “China Telecom was set to be included on the Entity List because of its alleged support for the Chinese government’s human rights abuses and activities in the South China Sea.”
“AT&T then lobbied to keep China Telecom off the Entity List,” former Commerce Department Undersecretary Corey Stewart told National File. Other Trump administration officials informed National File that the decision to keep China Telecom off the entity list was championed by former RNC chair Ed Gillespie:
Then Ed Gillespie, the former Republican National Committee chairman and Virginia gubernatorial candidate and currently AT&T’s executive vice president for external and legislative affairs, personally phoned Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in January and pressured him not to shake the boat with China, multiple sources have confirmed to NATIONAL FILE.
In the phone call with Ross and others at the Commerce Department, Ross stressed to Gillespie the moral imperative to blacklist China Telecom for supporting China’s human rights abuses including against the Uyghurs, according to sources. Ross also told Gillespie that the Commerce Department was going to accommodate AT&T to allow them to keep doing business with China Telecom. But Gillespie was not satisfied. Gillespie said that AT&T was worried about some kind of retribution that the Chinese government could take against AT&T, like breaching or ending their contract.
AT&T rationalized that, without China Telecom being allowed to do business in the United States and with American businesses, AT&T would not be able to do business in then Chinese mainland.
“Without a relationship with a licensed Chinese communications company, no non-Chinese provider can serve U.S. companies operating in China,” wrote AT&T, defending their decision to do business with a regime infamous for the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghur ethnic minority.
They then note that without their relationship with the Chinese government-owned company, these services would be “provided by a Chinese state-owned enterprise instead of AT&T”.
“We and other companies explained this to the Commerce Department and other government officials to inform their policy decision about potential unintended consequences of placing China Telecom on the entities list,” AT&T admitted.
AT&T concluded their statement by noting they are proud to have hauled in profits totaling $125 billion in the last five years while they worked with China Telecom.
The Chinese government was labeled as genocidal by the United States Department of State under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who declared “I have determined that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups.”
