© Peter Hartenfelser
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned the UK that allowing Huawei to bid on 5G contracts could spell the end of the US-UK "special relationship" - and, apparently, the UK's membership in the Five Eyes.
"With respect to 5G, the United States has an obligation to ensure that the places we will operate, the places where American information is, the places where we have our national security risks, that they operate inside trusted networks," Pompeo said in a speech to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Wednesday.
While "each country has a sovereign right to make its own decision about how to deal with the challenge," of whether to invite Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE to bid on infrastructure contracts,
the UK certainly wouldn't want to make the wrong decision, Pompeo hinted, adding, "I have great confidence that the UK will never take an action that will break this special relationship."
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt rushed to reassure the American. "We would never take a decision that compromised our ability to share intelligence with our Five Eyes colleagues, or particularly with the US," Hunt pleaded. "We are absolutely clear that the security relationship that we have with the US is what has underpinned the international order since 1945...
the preservation of that is our #1 foreign policy priority." The Five Eyes is a highly secretive global intelligence network formed in the aftermath of World War II to share intelligence between Anglophone allies the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Comment: If General Mike Flynn can be brought up on charges for legitimate contacts with Russian officials, surely Kerry's unauthorized jetting around the world as a private citizen, meeting with heads of state should qualify too.