Yeah, but with what he said below. If China has a monopoly and this guy can break it up and cause a huge deal; and rake in trillions, and keep that while his country remains poor, yada yada.
It's tied in with the election as much as anything. The only reason it got started was because they thought it was weapons. Then when it wasn't, it had to turn into something for them to still pursue.
When the murder of the senator gets involved, they just do a meh job of trying to tie everything together and it's mostly about a corrupt greedy president who wants to win again and beat his sandwich-making foe, and steal the money... Which he could have done in much easier ways.