Does it occurs to someone that in this time of encryption backdoor and such, this is also a good starting point to another mass surveillance system ? Mandate US manufacturers to embed remote access for the use of the government, then as you've made those routers the only ones authorized on the us soil (let's not be foolish about that approval process, it will be a smoke screen) you basically have a backdoor to every citizen home.

Yes china routers are a liability, but free trade and open market ensure at least one thing that's essential : no single state has surveillance capability on its entire population

Yes, that's what is happening here, except it goes beyond surveillance.

This is about full domestic control of the internet. For both ingress and egress.

Remember how Iran likely murdered thousands of protestors a few months ago, but we don't actually know? They want to be able to do that here.

This is why users need to have an american router, chinese router, and russian router, all wired in series. That way no one spy branch has full backdoor access through the chain ;-)