Well, it sure does not take long for a thread like this to derail!
The real issue here is that there is no level playing ground in business. It's difficult for even the European telecom equipment vendors to win contracts in the USA. However, the opposition is much more subtle and not so blatant. It's easy to play the China card to keep away Chinese competition, and that's exactly what's being done here.
There is a saying in the telecom world since the mid 2000s: Huawei and Zte are not good, they are very very good. Nowadays, if you go to any telecom operator in asia/africa/eastern europe/latin america, and check their switching stations, you will see that they are filled wall to wall with Huawei/ZTE equipment. Any telecom operator in their right mind will want to reduce their capex and it's here that the Chinese telecom vendors win big time. But, this does not come at the cost of quality. It cannot, since operators want a network which gives at atleast 99.99% uptime.
The only areas where Huawei and ZTE are relatively weaker is in the software around the switching components e.g. element managers, fault management systems etc. for monitoring the switches. However, they are maturing fast, and now Huawei makes okayish (and cheap) telecom billing software as well.
Huawei had a history of allegations of industrial espionage and were accused by Cisco for allegedly copying their entire source code for IP routers. However, it is also said (conjecture and hearsay, no source) that Huawei only sold these copied routers in China. For good or bad, to compete with big incumbents, you need to start somewhere.
So now, the truth now is, that Huawei has come a long way and is a hefty competitor. Zte is not very far behind. You should check the number of patents that only these two companies are churning out. And this is very uncomfortable for the competition. NokiaSiemens/Nortel/Cisco/Ericsson/Alcatel/Juniper etal are fighting hard and this has triggered the next round of innovations and cost cuts to stay competitive.
In a sense, this move by USA is a case of classic FUD (Fear, uncertainity, doubt), triggered by equipment vendors there. For American vendors, their local market is the last savior, as they are getting hammered on prices in other markets (Except Cisco and Juniper, nothing much sells in large volumes). This move will impact American telecom operators, as their capex will be higher, which will in turn result in data and call rates being higher in America. All other concerns like China taking over the country's telecom networks etc. is hogwash , as it is not possible to do so. Let's see how China retaliates in this trade war.