I mean the phone company bugged my neighbor's house but he let them set up his router so I guess that's fine.

It's not really a question of trust though is it? Did you really think we blindly trusted every piece of kit they sold us until the US government kicked up a stink?

It's a question of eye watering costs of ripping out ALL of the very expensive hardware vs. simply vetting it & ripping out some of the more complex stuff that cant be vetted.

Nope. Scorched earth.

I have no doubt that they would have already bugged the west if they thought we wouldnt catch them in the act.

Which we likely would have.

Hence, probably economic, not national security (unless its about america wanting to install its own bugs in which case lord help us).

Can you even vet it, really? All you need is one chip with secret logic inside it, in just a handful of boards, and you are hosed. You'd have to physically inspect every single board, in every single piece of equipment, and even then that's not 100%. Often these devices look completely different inside from lot to lot, due to the way component sourcing works.

I think ripping them out is likely much cheaper.

If it's in the core, to a certain level of confidence, but it's arguably worth ripping it out because of how hard it is to have enough confidence.

likewise anything that can address anything else on a network.

If it's, say, a radio antenna? yeah, you can.

The core was the cheapest and easiest thing to replace. It's the rest - the stuff it would be implausibly difficult to hack while we are watching which is eyewateringly expensive to rip out.