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The U.S. economy faces significant risks as adversaries, notably China, are reportedly targeting undersea cables with the potential to cause “devastating economic chaos at will,” a former intelligence official from the U.S. cautioned on Sunday.
These vital cables facilitate 99% of global data transmission and are crucial for managing financial transactions worth up to $10 trillion daily, according to various reports.
Andrew Badger, the chief strategy officer at Coalition Systems, a defense technology startup, shared his insights as President Donald Trump prepares for discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. The meeting is expected to center around trade, artificial intelligence, and the contentious issue of Taiwan.
Taiwan, a significant point of tension in U.S.-China relations, has experienced approximately 30 incidents involving subsea cables in recent years. One notable incident involved allegations of Chinese ships severing cables, resulting in prolonged communication disruptions.
On February 25, 2025, two personnel from the Taiwan Coast Guard boarded a Togo-flagged cargo ship to investigate suspected damages to a submarine cable linking Taiwan Island with Penghu Island, as reported by the Taiwan Coast Guard and Anadolu Agency.
“America depends on the fragile nervous system of subsea cables for modern life,” Badger, a former Pentagon official and author, told Fox News Digital before warning that U.S. adversaries “seek to turn the bottom of the ocean into a battlefield.”
“The asymmetric threat — China and Russia are devoting far more resources to attacking undersea infrastructure than the U.S. or its allies are to defending it,” Badger said.
“They’ve identified one of our greatest vulnerabilities, and we haven’t caught up. A coordinated strike on American undersea infrastructure could fundamentally disrupt our way of life — the internet, banking, energy markets and military communications all run through these cables. The dollar cost is almost incalculable, and the real damage would be the chaos and political instability that would follow,” he said.
Badger’s remarks came after Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., alongside Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., introduced the bipartisan Strategic Subsea Cables Act of 2026 in April.
The legislation is aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of critical undersea infrastructure.
The Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 is anchored in the sea of Kattegat near Granaa, Denmark, on Nov. 20, 2024. Denmark’s navy said it was shadowing the vessel in the Baltic Sea amid investigations into suspected sabotage of undersea telecom cables by Finland and Sweden. (Mikkel Berg Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP)
“Undersea cables are important for a variety of reasons. They carry 99% of the world’s internet traffic. They also support $10 trillion in financial transactions each and every day,” Barrasso said in a statement.
In April, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources confirmed a successful deep-sea mission testing an advanced “electro-hydrostatic actuator,” a device capable of slicing through armored submarine cables at depths of 3,500 meters, according to reports.
Similar suspicious disruptions have been reported in Europe and elsewhere, raising concerns about coordinated “gray-zone” operations designed to probe Western responses while remaining below the threshold of open conflict.
“This is hybrid warfare in its purest form, designed to weaken the adversary below the threshold of declared war,” Badger said, noting that incidents such as anchors dragging across the seabed can provide plausible deniability.
A split image shows Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and President Donald Trump, right. (Vincent Thian/POOL/AFP via Getty Images; Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Cables give Beijing and Moscow the ability to inflict devastating economic chaos almost at will,” Badger warned. “This gives both nations tremendous strategic leverage over the U.S.”
China could also potentially target American undersea cables as a deterrent to U.S. engagement in Taiwan, according to Badger.
“Beijing could simultaneously target cables landing in the U.S., not to win militarily, but with the goal of breaking the American public’s will to intervene in Taiwan,” he said.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory, while the U.S. — Taiwan’s largest unofficial ally — supplies weapons under a law requiring it to help the island defend itself.
The Taiwan Strait is also a critical artery for the artificial intelligence revolution’s most essential resources.
Anniki Mikelsaar of the Oxford Internet Institute said growth in AI’s use means “rising capacity requirements on submarine cables. Not all recent cable damage incidents can be attributed to foreign adversaries: the ICPC estimates 150 to 200 cable breaks occur per year around the globe, most of them accidents,” she said.