Following serious allegations made by President Trump last week that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) engaged in voter fraud and interference in the 2020 election, observers are pointing out that the Trump administration has so far made no indication that there would be any consequences for the regime’s alleged actions.

On June 16, Trump revealed during a televised address that Beijing had carried out “what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history” during the 2020 election. The operation allegedly involved the illegal acquisition of approximately 220 million U.S. voter files, including names, addresses, phone numbers, party affiliation, and other information. The president then declared that the data “would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening.”

Following the address, the administration released a batch of declassified documents that they stated proved that Xi Jinping’s regime had committed election interference. But as experts like National Review’s Jim Geraghty are observing, the documents are so heavily redacted that it’s “impossible to tell” if the pages are in fact “a smoking gun about Chinese malfeasance.”

Still, experts like former FBI Agent and Navy SEAL Jonathan Gilliam say that it is beyond question that China has attempted to undermine U.S. elections through any means necessary, including social media apps.

“Is it possible to influence a nation by getting voter rolls and then going out and targeting those individuals? Well, I think we’ve clearly shown that social media is a way to target these individuals,” he pointed out during “Washington Watch” Friday. “I think we’ve seen from the beginning when these apps came online that both political parties use that [to] tell you everything about a household — what they’re watching on TV, how many people live there, [how] they typically vote. There are apps that do all this stuff, and it takes everything into account,” he noted. “So if that’s the case, and that’s available to anyone that knows how to use that app legally, well, who’s to say that China, who does nefarious things all the time, who’s in league with Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, all these different groups that want to overthrow and subvert the United States — how could you not say that it’s possible that they would use any means possible to sway an election one way or the other?”

Others like Robert Destro, former assistant secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor during the first Trump administration, say that Beijing’s meddling in U.S. elections is part of a “long-term” strategy that is enabled by the use of electronic voting methods.

“China does everything long-term, and sometimes they’re reacting to us, sometimes they’re reacting to their own internal imperatives,” he contended during “This Week on Capitol Hill” over the weekend. “But I will guarantee you that China is not the only one. We’re going to find a lot of very interesting information in those documents, and what I’m intrigued about … is why everybody takes such great pains to deny anything’s wrong when we’ve known for well over 10 years that these electronic voting machines are a problem.”

Despite the malign election activities carried out by the CCP, Geraghty highlighted the curious lack of consequences that the Trump administration has imposed on the communist regime, including Trump’s positive public comments. “At the president’s summit with Xi in Beijing this year, Trump said, ‘It’s an honor to be your friend,’ ‘You’re a great leader, I say it to everybody,’ and ‘He’s a very smart man,’” Geraghty noted. The president has also refused to enforce Congress’s TikTok ban and has reversed a previous prohibition on selling advanced microchips to Beijing.

When asked about the lack of consequences Friday, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly declined to get into specifics, saying “I’m not going to get ahead of any conversations that the president or the administration is having on that front.” Kelly went on to state that plans to host Xi Jinping for a state visit in September remain unchanged.

Gordon Chang, an author and distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute who has been tracking China for decades, says that Trump’s comments regarding China during his national address could have served multiple purposes.

“His remarks could have been laying the groundwork for canceling Xi Jinping’s planned state visit in September, creating a bargaining chip for negotiations with the Chinese, letting off steam for Xi trying to humiliate him in May in Beijing, appeasing his hardline China critics, or getting the American people ready for harsh sanctions on China,” he told The Washington Stand. “And if it turns out he does nothing in the coming months, the speech may just have been political theater. We will not know for some time what he was doing with the unprecedented public criticism.”

Nonetheless, Chang maintained that the Trump administration should be unequivocal in how it should respond to Beijing’s continued efforts to subvert U.S. elections.

“What he should do is impose severe costs on China for attacking the core of our democracy,” he insisted. “I recommend closing the four Chinese consulates on American soil, stripping the embassy staff down to just a few people, enforcing the forced labor prohibitions of the Tariff Act of 1930, imposing new Section 301 tariffs, unplugging Chinese banks from the U.S. banking system pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, closing China’s remaining police stations and biological weapons facilities here, prohibiting advanced chip sales to China, and throwing Chinese nationals off our farm and ranch land. And if that does not get Xi Jinping’s attention, there is more we can do to eject the CCP from America.”