Trump Reelection Campaign Seen Unlikely to Shift on Telecom Policy

Trump was expected to outline “his vision and things he wants to accomplish in a second term” during a Thursday night speech to accept the Republican Party’s nomination, campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told reporters earlier. Officials said it’s unlikely that Trump would make more than a passing reference to what his campaign said are goals of ensuring U.S. leadership in 5G development and building a “National High-Speed Wireless Internet Network.” The Trump campaign didn’t comment. Excerpts from Trump’s speech released Thursday afternoon didn’t include references to tech and telecom. The GOP for the first time in its history didn't adopt a platform for the presidential campaign.

Democrats said in their platform they “will close the digital divide … by investing in broadband and 5G technology, including rural and municipal broadband, while ensuring those investments support good jobs and include strong protections for workers’ rights to organize, and restoring the FCC’s authority to take strong enforcement action against internet service providers who violate net neutrality principles.” The party supports creating “an infrastructure bank” to “leverage public and private resources to build infrastructure projects of national or regional significance,” including broadband.

“If you want to know what a second Trump administration” would look like on telecom policy matters, “just look at the first” term, said American Enterprise Institute Visiting Scholar Jeffrey Eisenach, a member of the Trump FCC transition team. Both at the FCC and elsewhere in the administration an emphasis would likely be on “assuring continued American if not dominance at least competitiveness in the mobile broadband space.” Eisenach expects a second Trump administration would include “continued efforts to get spectrum to market, continued efforts to lower barriers to deployment of infrastructure. There will continue to be work to be done to do what’s described as clearing out the regulatory underbrush.”

“I always told people I had the easiest job of all the transition heads because all I had to do was make sure” now-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai “got to be chairman and everything is going to turn out fine” on telecom policy, Eisenach said. Pai “has done just an astonishing job” and “I would expect more of the same” during a second Trump term regardless of who becomes chairman if Pai leaves.

“I have no idea whether [Pai] will serve another five years or another five months, but if at some point he departs, I would expect that his success would inform the choice of a successor,” Eisenach said. Commissioner Brendan Carr is viewed as having an edge to replace Pai as chairman (see 2006230059), especially given Trump’s withdrawal earlier this month of Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s renomination. Pai hasn’t ruled out extending his chairmanship (see 2006250055).

“I hope” the Trump campaign’s telecom policy stance doesn’t “shift too much” away from the administration’s existing policies, said R Street Institute Fellow Jeffrey Westling. Pai “has done a really good job” in setting FCC policy and “the one holdup has been some of these spectrum proceedings” in which other federal agencies have raised objections, including NTIA, DOD and Transportation Department concerns with Ligado’s L-band plan.

“I’d love to see a renewed focus on cooperation” between the FCC and other agencies on spectrum issues “to make sure we smooth out some of the backdoor drama that’s become public over the last few years,” Westling said. Senate Communications Subcommittee members expressed interest last month in pursuing legislation and other solutions on what they consider a dysfunctional interagency relationship on spectrum management (see 2007230073).

Nationalization

Westling said he’s generally concerned that the Trump administration hasn’t fully put to rest worries it might in the future back a proposal by Rivada Networks for the U.S. government to make spectrum being reserved for 5G available to carriers at wholesale. He didn’t want to speak to the specific language the Trump campaign released Sunday, since it was so brief. The Trump campaign spoke in 2019 in favor of the 5G wholesale concept, but later walked back the comment amid perceptions that was a form of nationalization (see 1903040058). A National Security Council official proposed in 2018 the U.S. build a national 5G network, drawing derision from across the political spectrum (see 1801290034).

“We’re going to win the race to 5G by having a strong private industry, not a national supplier,” Westling said. Nationalization is “going to dissuade people from investing in private networks and it’s going to take away some of those investment dollars needed to install small cells and put up necessary backbone” components. R Street “had a lot of issues with” Rivada’s proposals, he said. New Street Research analyst Blair Levin told investors earlier this week he didn’t “know for certain” if the campaign’s language referred to the Rivada plan, but it “is similar to the language used before in White House discussions that, in order to win at 5G, there might need to be a single, national, government-sponsored network.”

The “whole idea that Rivada has ever asked for free spectrum or sought to nationalize anything is a lie cooked up by our enemies to slander us,” a spokesperson said. “There has never been an ounce of truth to it.”

“The odds of” either the NSC or Rivada proposals coming to fruition “are just zero,” so it’s not worth asking the Trump campaign or administration to again disavow them, Eisenach said. “Obviously, there are interested parties and you can’t stop people from trying,” but “there have got to be more important problems to focus on” given how unlikely it is to happen. “If [DOD] decided it wanted to build a national 5G network tomorrow, it couldn’t do it” with or without Rivada’s help. “If it were ever tried, it would be a short-run fiasco,” he said.

Huawei, Broadband

The Trump campaign will likely highlight its moves to restrict telecom tech from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE as an example of the administration “getting tough on China,” Eisenach said. “That is going to be one of the top-tier issues” and one where the Trump campaign can most clearly highlight what it views as relative inaction by Biden and former President Barack Obama. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security placed further restrictions earlier this month on Huawei’s access to U.S. technology (see 2008170043).

Trump can also claim credit for work to improve “rural broadband deployments” given recent FCC actions, including its proposed $9 billion 5G Fund, Eisenach said. Trump can also “rightly take credit” for any broadband funding included in the next compromise COVID-19 aid bill if one passes Congress. Congress provided some related funding in March via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (see 2003250046).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday pandemic legislative talks with the Trump administration remain at a “tragic impasse” after speaking by phone earlier in the day with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Negotiations broke down two weeks ago (see 2008130053). Democrats remain unwilling to support legislation that provides less than $2.2 trillion in relief, while the White House has sought a lower funding figure. The House in May passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HR-6800), which included some connectivity money (see 2005130059). Senate Republicans’ proposals don’t include broadband funding (see 2007280059).

“I’m confounded every day by what Trump has to say” on broadband issues given how little he’s addressed it as president, said Internet Innovation Alliance honorary Chairman Rick Boucher, a Democratic ex-House Communications Subcommittee chairman from Virginia. Trump said during his February State of the Union speech he’s “committed to ensuring that every citizen can have access to high-speed internet, including and especially in rural America” (see 2002040070). It was the first time he mentioned broadband connectivity as a priority in the annual address, having not cited it during calls to pass infrastructure legislation in 2018 and 2019 (see 1902060002).