US Fights To Counter China’s Telecom Push In Africa

By John Rossomando

The U.S. faces an uphill battle in stemming the growth of Chinese telecommunications
infrastructure across Africa, particularly in Nigeria.

The first Trump administration and the Biden administration pressed to restrict the use of
Chinese vendors by U.S. diplomatic missions.

American vendors face challenges due to heavy Chinese lobbying and investment.

American investors such as the 3R Consortium, a consortium of U.S. technology companies
that holds a 15-year exclusive public-private partnership concession awarded by the
The Nigerian federal government has found itself sidelined as the agreement has been
cast aside.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers addressed the issue in a March letter to the Secretary of State
Marco Rubio, led by Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., is raising concerns about the proliferation
of Chinese-sponsored Huawei telecommunications equipment in Nigeria and elsewhere. “During the first Trump and Biden Administrations, the U.S. led efforts to restrict the use of Chinese vendors in telecommunications networks,” wrote Hudson and 12 other members of Congress, including Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. “Unfortunately, Huawei continues to grow its market share around the world, including in areas of Latin America such as Argentina, Africa such as Egypt, Nigeria, and Asia such as Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand.” They continued: “As the former Vice Chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, you regularly highlighted the national security concerns associated with Huawei, ZTE and Chinese equipment manufacturers … American Ambassadors should similarly carry forth the message that supporting Huawei, ZTE, and other untrusted vendors undermines national security and exposes citizens around the world to unacceptable risks.”

Yu Dunhai, China’s ambassador to Nigeria, called his country’s collaboration with Nigeria
in the area of telecommunications an important part of the relationship between the two countries. “Since the meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2024, China–Nigeria bilateral cooperation across all sectors has entered a fast track,” Dunhai
said. ”

Educational exchanges between our two countries have continued to yield fruitful
results, serving as a vital bridge for mutual learning between our civilisations and for
strengthening people-to-people ties.”

Last year, Huawei signed an agreement with MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest cellphone
service provider, to bring connectivity to rural areas. Africa’s most populous country suffers
from a lack of rural infrastructure affecting roughly 105 million people. Huawei agreed to
deploy what it calls RuralCow to expand connectivity in rural Nigeria. The U.S. government accused Huawei of engaging in espionage and warned that American secrets, including information about U.S. nuclear weapons, could be stolen. The National Security Agency found that the Chinese government had installed backdoors on Huawei hardware that could be used for spying.

In 2019, Huawei was accused of helping African governments spy on their people.
Huawei’s fight with the U.S. centers on physical infrastructure: radios, 5G core networks,
switches and the pipes carrying traffic. Washington’s current playbook is to finance non-Chinese alternatives — including an Export-Import Bank loan to Africell and a U.S.
International Development Finance Corporation’s stake in WIOCC cables and data centers
— so African operators buy Ericsson, Nokia or Samsung equipment instead of Huawei gear.
The Nigerian Communications Commission signed a deal in 2022 with 3R to strengthen
and manage the integrity of the revenue-generation process in Nigeria’s
telecommunications industry.

The deal aimed to maximize telecommunications revenue for the Nigerian federal government. 3R won the right to manage ERAS, or Expanded Revenue Assurance Solutions, a system designed to track in real time what the federal government is owed from telecommunications and digital services.

The same year brought a similar model involving a different revenue stream.
While the NCC handed 3R the job of tracking what telecommunications operators owe the
Treasury, Nigeria’s Customs Service, handed a Chinese-led consortium the job of tracking
what importers and exporters owe, with Huawei serving as the technical partner in the
revenue-sharing arrangement.

Nigeria granted Huawei a parallel revenue-assurance deal at Customs — a 20-year
A concession under which Huawei serves as the technical partner on a revenue-sharing basis
. The Nigeria Customs Service signed an agreement with Huawei in 2022 for an e-
The customs project was projected to generate $176 billion over 20 years.
A closer look shows that several Nigerian government officials responsible for overseeing developments in the country’s telecommunications industry have strong ties to China.

Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, spoke highly of Huawei’s investment in his country’s digital sector at the Huawei Day Nigeria 2025

Government Forum.

The minister called Huawei’s investment in Nigeria critical to the country’s development.
Tijani met with China’s ambassador in June to discuss further cooperation. He also
endorsed the participation of Nigerian technology students in competitions such as the 2025 Huawei Global ICT Competition, underscoring the close cooperation between
Nigeria’s government, educational and digital sectors and Huawei.

Huawei Nigeria pledged in August to help the country develop a $1 trillion digital economy
during a meeting between Huawei management and Nigerian Foreign Minister Amb. Sola Enikanolaiye in Abuja.

Meanwhile, the 3R Consortium says it has found itself pushed aside since 2024, with progress
on its project stalled without explanation.

“We invested heavily in Nigeria because we believe in the country’s potential and in the
partnership between our two nations, and that has not changed,” said a spokesperson for
the consortium. “After more than two years of Nigerian government stalling our multi-
billion-dollar concession, our huge investments remain trapped in Nigeria.

“With the Nigerian government making no effort towards a resolution, we have an
obligation to our member companies and their investors to make sure the U.S. government
fully understands the situation.”

China expert Gordon Chang blames the U.S. government’s failure to actively compete in
Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, for the predicament faced by the 3R Consortium and other
American companies.

“The trouble is that China has always identified Africa as a priority, and America has not,
and that is a direct result of American neglect,” Chang said.

3R says the stalled project is ERAS (Expanded Revenue Assurance Solutions), a system
designed to track in real time what the federal government is owed from telecommunications and digital services. The consortium says the concession was won through a multiyear tender, is about 80% deployed and has been paused without explanation since January 2024.

While the platform sits idle, 3R argues, Abuja has continued collecting the same taxes
through the old system. The group cites official figures showing about $7.5 billion in
collections from 2024 through mid-2026 and says that translates into hundreds of millions
of dollars in unpaid fees — on top of capital it says is already trapped in Nigeria.
“This is natural because the United States has not really competed, so of course, Nigeria is
going to take the benefits that China offers it, but long-term, this is a horrible deal for
Nigeria,” Chang said. “In the short term, it is very attractive, and we just don’t compete
effectively.

“So we can complain about the Chinese all we want, and this is the natural result of the
The United States needs to pay attention.”

The consortium adds that the issue is not only a commercial dispute. It points to the State
Department’s 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report from August, which found that Nigeria
failed to meet the U.S. minimum standard for a second straight year, with a budget that
remained vague on revenue and spending.

3R’s pitch is that a live ERAS feed would give Abuja and Washington a clearer picture of
telecommunications and digital receipts, and help Nigeria meet the standard next time.
To press the issue, the consortium has expanded its work with Continental Strategy, the Washington firm founded by former Ambassador Carlos Trujillo, whose roster includes a former chief of staff to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a former national security adviser to Vice President JD Vance.

The firm has already spoken with officials at the State, Treasury and Commerce
departments, as well as members of Congress who work on U.S.-Nigeria issues. The new
mandate is to put the matter before a wider group of officials who handle U.S. commercial
policy toward Africa. “Our objective is a speedy resolution that works for Nigeria and for the American
companies that have honored their commitments by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the Nigerian ERAS project, and we believe that outcome is still available,” the spokesperson said.

3R says the Washington campaign is meant to complement, not replace, talks with
Nigerian counterparties and that it remains bound by the concession. A quick resolution, it
argues, would demonstrate that Nigeria remains a place where American capital can
operate — at a time when both governments say they want more trade and less aid.

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John Rossomando is an experienced national security and counterterrorism analyst and
researcher who writes for Newsmax and has been featured in numerous publications and
has been consulted by numerous U.S. government agencies.

Culled from
https://www.newsmax.com