Will Xiaomi's lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and the Treasury Department force the U.S. to recognize its unconstitutionality?

If Xiaomi wants to win this lawsuit, it must explain to the court that Congress should not have passed this bill because it is a deprivation of public power and is suspected of being unconstitutional. However, the "National Defense Authorization Act" includes government procurement, economic review and congressional approval processes, and includes both executive and judicial powers. It is not a decision made by a single agency under the federal government. From the perspective of the organizational structure of administrative litigation, it does leave a backdoor for Huawei and Xiaomi to file a lawsuit, but it is impossible for the plaintiff to get a positive result from the lawsuit.

Furthermore, "unconstitutionality" is a hotly debated topic in the US judicial community. For example, the US media is now reporting on the infighting of the Trump team. Trump, who has already left office, suddenly parted ways with the two chief lawyers who defended him in the Senate impeachment trial last Saturday. The impeachment trial will officially begin on February 9, which can be said to be a mess. Trump's adviser Jason Miller said: "The Democrats are trying to impeach a president who has already left office. This is completely unconstitutional." It questioned the legitimacy of the impeachment itself and triggered a heated debate in the US constitutional law community. It can be seen that on major political issues such as whether the impeachment of the former president is unconstitutional, the elites of the US legal community are divided, which undoubtedly exposes the ambiguity of the boundaries of the US constitutional review mechanism. So, whether Xiaomi Group's lawsuit against the US Department of Defense and the Treasury Department can bring about a broken window effect in which Chinese companies force domestic legal reforms in the United States, although the expectations cannot be too high, it does express the reasonable and legal attitude of the company within its capabilities.

in conclusion

Unlike the U.S. Department of Commerce's "Entity List" system, the Pentagon's blacklist punishment mechanism does not involve Xiaomi Group's industrial supply chain issues this time. The effect at the practical level may at most affect the confidence of some investors in the short term, and will have no substantial impact on the development of Xiaomi's global mobile phone business, especially chip supply.

We also noticed that the Pentagon's reckless move occurred in the sensitive window period after the "Capitol Hill Riot" in the United States and before Biden was sworn in. Biden was not unaware that the new ruling team faced a series of difficult tasks of filling holes and clearing mines. One week after taking office, he updated the ban on investment in certain Chinese military companies and postponed the implementation of the directive on companies with similar names to those on the blacklist until May. In short, Xiaomi's "David vs. Goliath"-like fighting courage this time is likely to open up a new situation different from Huawei's lawsuit against the US government.