When Trump phones friends, Chinese and Russians listen in
President’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cell phone calls are not secure
When President Donald Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, US intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening — and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former US officials said.
Trump’s aides have warned him his cell phone calls are not secure, and they have told him Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on calls, as well. But aides say the president, who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often these days, has still refused to give up his iPhones. White House officials say they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he is on them.
US spy agencies, the officials said, had learnt that China and Russia were eavesdropping on the president’s cell phone calls from human sources inside foreign governments and intercepting communications between foreign officials.
The officials said they have also determined that China is seeking to use what it is learning from the calls — how Trump thinks, what arguments tend to sway him and to whom he is inclined to listen — to keep a trade war with the United States from escalating further. In what amounts to a marriage of lobbying and espionage, the Chinese have pieced together a list of the people with whom Trump regularly speaks in hopes of using them to influence the president, the officials said.
‘Use a Huawei’
China’s foreign ministry has some suggestions for the Trump administration if it is worried about foreign eavesdropping on the US president’s iPhones: use a Huawei handset instead.
Or just cut all forms of modern communication with the outside world.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that the journalists behind the report in the New York Times “are sparing no efforts to win the Academy Award for best screenplay.”
“Firstly, the New York Times should know that such report just provides another piece of evidence that the NYT is making fake news,” Hua said at a daily news briefing. “Secondly, I suggest they replace their iPhone with Huawei ones if they are really concerned about security issues,” Hua said.