Chile turned to China for an undersea cable. The U.S. said no
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A proposed undersea cable from Chile to Hong Kong promised to connect South America directly to Asia. Instead, it became a test of how far the U.S. will go to curb Chinese telecom ambitions.
On the morning of February 20, 2026, Juan Carlos Muñoz, then Chile’s minister of transportation and telecommunications, woke up to an email from the U.S. State Department. It informed him...