The proposed rule would remove a critical AI data center component from U.S. imports, but the Western alternative runs straight through a Chinese mineral chokepoint. The Trump administration's FCC is drafting a rule to ban U.S. imports of new Chinese optical transceiver models used inside AI data centers, first reported by Reuters on August 4, 2026. The transceiver ban fits the sequence. For anyone tracking the AI data center buildout as an infrastructure story, the fragility this ban exposes is the point. What to WatchThe first falsifiable checkpoint is Coherent's Q4 2026 InP capacity report.