Trump Declares National Emergency to Ban Some Foreign Grid Equipment (whitehouse.gov) 93
Longtime Slashdot reader dhartshorn writes: Foreign-produced "bulk power" equipment is now effectively banned, and the list of what constitutes such equipment is essentially everything used to make up the grid... much of which we are heavily dependent on foreign sources to supply. In a Wednesday executive order, President Trump said foreign supply of electric equipment "constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat" to national security. The Hill reports: Under the order, it will be up to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in coordination with other officials, to determine whether a piece of equipment poses an issue. The order could impact a wide range of equipment, including substations, transformers, batteries used for energy storage, generators, turbines, software and more. It does not lay out specific threats or single out any country by name.
[...] Under the last Trump administration, the president put a similar order in place. The new order comes amid several reported cyberattacks on U.S. water systems, which officials suspect have links to Iran, according to The New York Times.
[...] Under the last Trump administration, the president put a similar order in place. The new order comes amid several reported cyberattacks on U.S. water systems, which officials suspect have links to Iran, according to The New York Times.
Laying the groundwork (Score:5, Informative)
Next up will be a "national emergency" to prevent or disallow the results of the general election.
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:1)
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:2)
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that the first Trump administration triggered an attempted insurrection, *shrug*
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:2)
Not for people who pay attention it isn't
Re:Laying the groundwork (Score:5, Interesting)
For some definition of 'they', sure, there's always *someone* paranoid about the scenario.
However there's a fair amount more credible supposition over this one. Trump's sore loser reaction has paved the way for some dangerous moves.
In 2020, he only went to interfere *after* the fact, but he clearly interfered. When the results betrayed him, he sought to overturn them and when that failed he tried to ignore the electors and use their own anyway and as that failed he tried to get Pence to reject the election and as that failed he incited a mom to try to disrupt the proceedings. He learned that in a fair game he actually could lose and that was unacceptable and he was willing to do whatever it takes to replace a loss with a win.
Now he and opportunistic cohorts are already much more proactive about it. Every reason to anticipate any plausible excuse to rig or discard the elections as he has proven himself already willing to do so and is surrounded by a much more all-in administration than his first term. Already trying to mess with mail-in, already openly rigged the representative maps, already been working ICE and national guard troops to get the hang of domestic military operations. Stephen Miller once basically publicly fantasized about sending republican controlled national guard into democratic states against their will to make them bend to his will.
I do anticipate the election will be *held* and if and only if the results are a loss will they try anything like an 'emergency', but I absolutely expect ICE and national guards to be doing operations around strategic polling sites. Ostensibly about immigration or crime, but with the oh so coincidental side effect of voter suppression.
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In terms of pushing a bit more each time... yeah, they probably will not call an emergency, but ICE and troops hanging around poling stations and selectively harassing people? That is plausible.. as is siezing ballots and subjecting them to mr pillow style recounts.
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That which is claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. And I'm dismissing all of your claims.
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Didn't stop Biden.
Um, yes it did.
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It literally did. Or are you still confused why he wasn't on the voting ballot in the last election?
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:3, Insightful)
If at first you don't succeed*, try try again.
* at overthrowing the current constitutional Republic based around centuries of democratic principles, and replacing it first with a unitary executive then using that authority to transform it into an autocratic executive system.
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They're only trying to ensure only valid votes are counted so something like 2020 isn't allowed to happen again.
They should do another dozen of formal reviews, audits, and investigations at both the state and federal levels into the 2020 election. Maybe they will finally turn up something since you seem so convinced there is something there. Because your gut feeling in the matter is important!
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Who is they?
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Yeah, but in 2020 Trump was pretty confident that he was going to win reelection without needing a bunch of shenanigans.
This time, he's going to have come up with a pretty big fake emergency to suspend elections and remain in power IF that's something that he actually wants to do. I don't really think that he does, but man... he sure loves trolling liberals by posting Trump 2028 memes.
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see what his plan for not spending the rest of his life locked up watching his family lose everything on the news is if not to remain in office...
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The president can't pardon himself, but a future one can. Maybe that will be his play.
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They said that about both Bushs' and the first Trump administration, too.
All those Flock cameras aren't being put up for nothing.
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Every time they push just a bit more to see what they can get away with. Conservatives and libertarians have been wanting to do away with that pesky democracy and its anti-god communist implications since the evangelical takeover in the reagan years. So yeah... people have been warning for decades, but we keep getting closer.
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:2)
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Text of the Executive Order starts:
"Only the terrorists would vote for anyone but the greatest president ever! All real 'Mericans would vote for me, so what's the point of elections anyway? Do you want the terrorists to win?"
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End of the FP branch... Not a bad angle (of attack?) but none of the Funny I was looking for. The most obvious angle of funny is that the national emergency is an idiot signing executive orders. However the attack on Ontario is funnier for the fake emergency category. Which triggered me for the prayer angle:
Dear gawd, please make the stupid stop.
There's also the chicken and egg genre:
Which came first? The unwell YOB or the unwell America that allowed the YOB to become so YUGE, so Orange, and so Buffoonish.
Yeah, recycled humor and your B-word mileage may differ.
And venting avails naught.
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And venting avails naught.
Sufficient venting from enough people constitutes "public opinion". In a free country - which, admittedly, America no longer is - public opinion determines election outcomes and shapes policy.
USPS not allowed to move mail due to Foreign Equip (Score:3)
USPS not allowed to move mail due to Foreign Equipment that need to be swapped out. Makeing that mail in vote come in to late.
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Next up will be a "national emergency" to prevent or disallow the results of the general election.
Tell me again how badly America needs to pass the SAVE Act.
No, no. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Doubling down with long-TDS worked out great. I think Democrats should triple down next time.
That'll really teach 'em.
And pay no attention to those screaming at you for tossing the ball back through your own goalposts. They're just jealous.
Re:Laying the groundwork (Score:5, Interesting)
Next up will be a "national emergency" to prevent or disallow the results of the general election.
Tell me again how badly America needs to pass the SAVE Act.
No, no. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Doubling down with long-TDS worked out great. I think Democrats should triple down next time.
That'll really teach 'em.
And pay no attention to those screaming at you for tossing the ball back through your own goalposts. They're just jealous.
What the hell does any of this even mean?
Re: Laying the groundwork (Score:2, Informative)
He has no idea.
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It means the AI is hallucinating more than usual when using that Slashdot account.
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TBH while Trump is pretty much telegraphing that he'll do just that, this story is unlikely to have anything to do with it. We happen to be in an era in which nation states have learned how easy it is to hide secret remote controls in all kinds of apparently innocuous hardware.
It's just difficult with Trump who swings wildly between ludicrous justifications of import bans, and occasionally doing what his administration's smarter advisors are actually telling him needs to be done. One of the reasons this pre
I will repurpose an old Western Canadian slogan... (Score:2)
Let the Southern Bastards Freeze in the Dark [energyregu...arterly.ca].
Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
A National Emergency Declaration that says we cannot purchase the critical equipment that is in such demand that it takes 6 months to 2 years to get already? We will just step out of line and let it go to whomever else wants it.
If there were available domestic suppliers of this equipment, all of the production would already be spoken for. There is unmet demand NOW.
[Oww, my balls!]
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> Also no, nothing is banned, they need approval.
The approval has to come from the federal government (DOE). This means an investigation and navigating federal approvals. This is an effective ban that is not limited to data centers.
> New york issued a ban.
New York's recent action is much more directly about data-center construction and electricity demand.
> California issued a similar requirement for approval.
CEC has permitting authority over certain generating facilities associated with data center
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A National Emergency Declaration that says we cannot purchase the critical equipment that is in such demand that it takes 6 months to 2 years to get already?... There is unmet demand NOW.
Maybe Trump is eager to do to Americans that which he has already done to Cubans...
Coming soon... (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect to see a bunch of foreign power companies staying at Trump properties, playing golf at Trump resorts, and buying a ton of Trump coin followed shortly by their equipment being said to be "safe" and allowed to be imported. We NEED this equipment because we don't make most of it here and definitely not enough of it, so it will have to be allowed in. This is just a way for Trump to get paid by them to be allowed in.
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Re: Coming soon... (Score:2)
Trump Dick Sucker says what?
Re: Coming soon... (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue isnt the components, those are simple. The issue is a huge amount of this equipment is bespoke, and the facilities and expertise are gone in the US to make them (GE has a facility theyve tried to rapidly grow, but itll be nowhere near enough for quite a while). With the explosion in datacenter growth and accompanying power infrastructure the lead time on equipment is five to ten years. Theres alternatives being developed domestically that are mass-producable that use some clever new techniques to remove the bespoke aspects of the equipment, but it'll be probably another 10 years before that tech is proved out in grid trials and starts scaling.
As someone who's job is deep in the thick of grid planning, id say the concern here is legitimate but the ship has sailed. This is one of the many things that never should have been allowed to be offshored, but since it was the realities on the ground just dont support an executive order in this form. The kind of targeted, government subsidized intervention Biden did with chips and transformers and all kinds of other infrastructure is the smart way to handle these issues. This is the dumb way. We should give the half dozen companies working on the next generation of this technology government funding to accelerate, while sucking up as much foreign production of the current generation as we can. What trump is doing is instantly kneecapping growth while aiming our sights backwards instead of forwards.
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As someone who's job is deep in the thick of grid planning
Any insights to the above?
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dirk was ambiguous when s/he referred to "foreign power companies" when they actually supply equipment, not power. But s/he subsequently clarified things by mentioning twice that they supply equipment.
So, who's the "fucking idiot?"
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transformer cores and some switchgear
All of that stuff is bespoke. Transformers and their cores are made to order for anything beyond the last mile of consumer connections, and depending on the size of the consumer, maybe even the consumer connection.
Switchgear is *ALL* bespoke. There's literally nothing off the shelf. It may be assembled from off the shelf components, but it is universally assembled for the customer on demand based on customer specifications, and this includes even for the smallest 3phase boards to say nothing of gas-insulate
"Determination" Process (Score:2)
Either it will be in conjunction with a manufacturer liaison team of hookers bearing bags of coke, or brown envelopes stuffed with cash stuck to the inside of the packing crates.
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Either it will be in conjunction with a manufacturer liaison team of hookers bearing bags of coke, or brown envelopes stuffed with cash stuck to the inside of the packing crates.
Either? Why not both?
Dude is gonna induce a depression (Score:5, Insightful)
Trade wars, sky-high inflation .. and he's doubling down on all the things causing it. What could go wrong? This is the golden age? Democrats are too dumb to play back his words and remind people we're supposed to be in a golden age.
He's been doing drastic shit for two years and it's not improved things for anyone except billionaires.
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He's been doing drastic shit for two years and it's not improved things for anyone except billionaires.
Gee, you don't think that was the plan all along, do you? Imagine a billionaire doing things that only billionaires would benefit from. Nobody could have seen that coming!
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The Democratic "leadership" is fine with it. They can give their corporate and billionaire benefactors everything on their wish list, and if voters complain just say, "We'd love to help you, but those meanies on the other side of the aisle won't let us. Maybe if you send us more money we'll try harder!"
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Democrats are too dumb to play back his words and remind people we're supposed to be in a golden age.
They do so constantly. Trump supporters don't watch or trust media that show that, however. They're deeply, deeply committed to the cult and see whatever the hell they want to see. At this point even solipsists are more grounded in objective reality than Trump supporters.
Re:Dude is gonna induce a depression (Score:5, Informative)
Democrats are too dumb to play back his words and remind people we're supposed to be in a golden age.
JFC, what more do you think the Democrats could do? There was nothing but "Orange Man will destroy this country" from them before the election if anyone would have fucking listened.
Forty-plus years of Fox News gaslighting, FUD, moral panics, and outright lies means that there is a large group of people who will consistently vote against their own interests in the name of "owning the libs". Constant drumbeat of "libruls bad" and thorough sanewashing of orange man and the GOP's policies made these people deaf to what the Democrats were saying. Maybe the pain they're feeling from getting screwed over can make them hear again.
He's been doing drastic shit for two years and it's not improved things for anyone except billionaires.
It all makes perfect sense when you understand one thing: he's doing it for himself. The billionaires just happen to benefit from those same policies too.
Re:Dude is gonna induce a depression (Score:4, Insightful)
JFC, what more do you think the Democrats could do? There was nothing but "Orange Man will destroy this country" from them before the election if anyone would have fucking listened.
Forty-plus years of Fox News gaslighting,
Fox News is a problem because Bill Clinton signed the CDA, which permitted media consolidation. Same with Sinclair. What Democrats could have done was not cause the problem in the first fucking place.
How much absolutely horrible shit has to be done by establishment Democrats before we accept the simple fact that they are doing it on purpose because they don't want to win as that would kill the golden goose?
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No, Fox News has nothing to do with the CDA, which was largely about that part of the media regulated by the FCC. Fox News is not regulated by the FCC, it's a cable channel.
I'm not saying the CDA was good - just look at the degree to which radio got enshittified, and local news veered heavily right wing as companies like Sinclair bought up local broadcasters. I'm just saying Rupert Murdoch would have done everything he did anyway as he wasn't affected. The only way I can think of that he benefited from the
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Actually a pretty good policy (Score:3)
There will need to be a lot of exceptions/exemptions, but the current condition is unsustainable. The protective relays are the main concern, so you should still be able to get "dumb" foreign equipment and add domestic protective relays.
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And rely on outdated equipment with unreliable firmware to protect it.
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I'm not sure if you've ever been in a substation, but that's not even remotely a concern. There's nothing at all wrong with "outdated" equipment. Even 30 year old purely mechanical protection relays work just fine. Outdated firmware isn't an issue (in all my years I've *NEVER* seen firmware upgraded on protection relays, EVER, even fancy intelligent ones, even as the engineering workstations they connect to come and go and get upgraded over and over again, relays are largely set and forget). Typically when
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The responses here are entirely predictable, but it's a legitimate concern. If China can shut off my router, that's one thing. If they can turn off the power grid, that's a different situation. It would be foolish to assume they and other countries are not at least trying to have that capability. I think having an audit of foreign made grid equipment is a good thing.
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There will need to be a lot of exceptions/exemptions...
Yeah -- because you can't connect your shiny new AI data center to the grid if there's no hardware to do that.
Interesting the people most in need of this stuff right now, and the most desperate to get their projects up and running fast, also happen to have very deep pockets, too.
Smells like autarky (Score:4, Insightful)
This goes way beyond China. The US wants to be able to stop trade on a dime with every single trading "partner" in the world, while making them dependent on their exports ... so the exact same industrial policy as China. Given the Greenland mess this isn't a theoretical risk to any US trading "partners" either.
The US has one ally left in the world, every other nation is an adversary.
If my kids (Score:2)
Re:If my kids (Score:5, Insightful)
He needs to declare it an emergency to allow him to bypass congress.
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Trump is a kid with no idea how to effectively wield the machinery of government.
Trump is a foreign-affiliated attacker who is effectively wielding the machinery of government in order to damage and if possible destroy that government.
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Oh how much one would go to not accept that he's one of their own
Re: If my kids (Score:2)
Whose own? He's not in my family.
Re:If my kids (Score:5, Informative)
Suppose your kids figure out that if they ask you permission you're likely to say no. So they just say "oh, it's an emergency, there's no time to ask permission, I need to make a decision right now" and go and do whatever they want.
That's why Trump keeps declaring emergencies. The US has so many emergency acts that the president can give himself most powers, including ones that are explicitly forbidden in the US constitution, just by saying "it's an emergency" in an executive order. It's also not just Trump. No president since Roosevelt has been able to resist using emergency powers.* Trump's currently got fifty some on the go.
* Ford, Johnson, Kennedy and Eisenhower didn't make new emergencies, but they did continue their predecessors'.
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You know what isn’t a national emergency? The Epstein files.
Re: A Real Emergency? Prove it. (Score:2)
Well unless you're a victim in those files and people who victimized you are still alive and in power, or any other kid being raped by rich people today who look at how so many get away with it and can copy what they've done. Seems like that would be a national emergency given how many people in government would be complicit in not bringing justice to such situations. Maybe such cases as the new reckless ben investigation into ideal life and their ceo running a sex cult getting ignored by the fbi. S
Let's be clear here (Score:2, Insightful)
The executive order gives the Energy Secretary the power to designate certain organizations as potential risks, with a primary focus on Chinese suppliers. This doesn't outright ban "all foreign suppliers" of electrical grid equipment, the biggest suppliers of which are ABB and SIemens, both European and they are not banned. Organizations like ABB and Siemens will have to docum
Re: Let's be clear here (Score:2)
paul_engr's comment which for me appears right after yours explains why that is nonsense. I would link it but mobile is shit
I don't think this will work (Score:4, Insightful)
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there would be minimum standards for cybersecurity and the auditability of all critical infrastructure
There are. There's a whole series of ISA and IEC standards for cybersecurity which are mandatory in such installations.
So pure meaningless actionism now (Score:3)
Anything larger like transformers has long delivery times. Seems the felon is getting desperate.
National Emergency (Score:3)
Every action by the government can only be carried out by executive order. A continuous state of emergency.
In the home of the brave, there is constant fear.
In good faith (Score:2)
That's exactly how he advances all aspects of his self-absorbed, malignant agenda.
All the evidence of what he actually did and what actions he and his organisation have taken show they never negotiate in good faith and Trump only cares about Trump and to hell with anyone else.
When does it become a national emergency to ban anything and anyone that doesn't pay homage or donate to Trump?