This one combines a few stories that we've covered a lot over the years, showing how they're intersecting. For some time now we've been covering the US's evidence-free attacks on Huawei, the Chinese telco equipment giant. Basically, for years, there have been stories insisting that Huawei is too closely linked to the Chinese government, leading to fear mongering stories saying that the company should be effectively barred from the US. However, multiple attempts to find security flaws in Huawei's products have failed to show any kind of backdoors, and the fact that US-based Huawei competitors often seem to be making the loudest noises about the Chinese giant should raise some eyebrows.

The other story we've covered a lot is around China and patents. For years and years, US companies (and policymakers) would go on and on about how Chinese companies didn't respect US patents, and demanding that China "must respect our IP." As we've highlighted for years, the Chinese government realized a decade or so ago that since the US kept trying to apply diplomatic pressure to "respect patents," China realized it could just start using patents as an economic weapon. The number of patents granted in China started to shoot up, and (surprise surprise) suddenly in legal disputes, Chinese companies were using patents to block American competitors. And the US couldn't really complain since it was the US that demanded China "respect patents" so much.

Just a few weeks ago, we noted that China was gearing up to respond to Donald Trump's ignorant trade war by using patents against US companies. Put it all together, and it should be no surprise at all that Huawei is now demanding $1 billion from Verizon for patent infringement.

Verizon is reportedly using equipment through other companies that relies on Huawei patents covering core networking gear, internet of things technology and wireline infrastructure. Verizon and Huawei representatives met last week in New York to talk about whether the gear could infringe on Huawei patents, Reuters said.

"These issues are larger than just Verizon," a Verizon spokesman told Reuters. "Given the broader geopolitical context, any issue involving Huawei has implications for our entire industry and also raises national and international concerns."

The US government walked right into this. For years it's been demonizing Huawei without evidence, while at the same time demanding that China respect patents. So, of course, it opened itself right up to Huawei now claiming patent infringement against US companies. Even better, it's over third party gear. US policymakers can't seem to think more than a single move ahead, because it was fairly obvious how all of this would play out years ago, and yet they walked right into it.