Scott Bessent told CNBC this week that several government agencies were “in favour of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months.” Read that slowly. Months. Several agencies, all in favour, all apparently sharing one pen, and somehow the paperwork never reached the desk where it could actually do something. That is not bureaucracy. That is a national security apparatus practising its breathing exercises.
Here is how it probably works. The entity list is the Commerce Department’s roster of companies that American firms are barred from doing business with. Adding a name requires a process, and processes need someone awake to push them along. Meanwhile Megaspeed carried on the way fast-growing companies do: quietly, efficiently, and without anyone in Washington finishing a memo.
Some will call this a story about slow government. That is too modest. The more interesting reading is that the delay was the product. Nothing turns a company into a fixture of international finance faster than a regulator who agrees that something should be done, for months, and then goes to lunch.
The Commerce Department has not yet explained the delay. Megaspeed has not yet explained anything. Both are, we are told, very busy.