In Germany it was in the news that US hinted that if we wouldn't participate in banning Huawei we are excluded from further sharing of intelligence and stuff like this. For 5G and T-Mobile i.e. Deutsche Telekom AG they basically said: Dare to buy Huawai and you gonna have a bad time.

It's these liberal and western high ethics at work here...

Like building Putin gas pipeline behind EUs back?

Behing the EU's back? The project is public since years. The former German chancellor is publicly involved in it.

The project is very much European: lots of countries involved.

Why can't the EU buy gas from wherever we want?

Who is the the US to tell us where to buy our gas from?

Project is so European it goes against interests of 1/3 EU: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Croatia. Its not "EU buy gas from wherever we want", Its Germany making deals with Russia once again, remember Ribbentrop/Molotov? Russia is already hard at work making you forget https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-after-russian-pr..., buying gas from Russia while bypassing other EU member states.

It's still in the public and debated - even if controversial - quite a difference to blackmail behind closed-doors...

Its neither debated nor in public. It was negotiated in secret and being build as we speak while company behind it prepares to sue EU.

They appear to be working hard on having it blacklisted in the UK AFAICT. BBC Click did a report and a guy from GCHQ basically said "it's not a problem" whilst there seems to be a deal of press trying to push the political angle to make it politically expedient -- I can only assume that's a propaganda attempt by USA?

I'm surprised that Huawei is such a threat to USA industry to be honest.

Perhaps Trump's team has shares in their opposition, or was trying to short them?

Well, Paul Singer, founder of Elliott Management, has donated to Trump, and Elliott has a large stake in Samsung.