The way the last administration rolled this out was certainly with a political narrative, but my guess is it originated with people that weren't thinking at all about politics.

The simple story is that core infrastructure is of strategic national importance, and an elevated risk that infrastructure is compromised can never be worth whatever the benefits are of using a particular supplier's equipment. There is no practical way to 100% ensure that every piece of software, and every chip, in every piece of equipment is clean. Chips are especially scary (the push to have domestic chip fab by the US and other countries is about more than just supply chain).

This is true when it comes from what are considered trustworthy suppliers as well, but you're dealing with probabilities. I think that regardless of whether this move fits into a political narrative about China, or "economic warfare", the practical basis is that for some types of equipment, the risk is just too large and the ability to mitigate too limited, in general.

Unfortunately this was figured out with Huawei/ZTE after the fact, but tbh I don't think the specific company matters at all, it just happened to be they were in this business at the time & based in the wrong country.