Under a policy that began Tuesday, passengers traveling to the U.S. from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries will not be allowed to have iPads, laptops or any communications device larger than a smartphone in the cabin of the plane. If you are traveling from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or the UAE on Egypt Air, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines or Turkish Airlines, and you want to use your laptop on the flight, you are probably out of luck.

The Trump administration says the new rules were introduced because of intelligence that shows terrorists are continuing to target airlines flying to the U.S. An unidentified person familiar with the issue has told the Washington Post that officials have long been worried by a Syrian terrorist group that is trying to build bombs inside electronic devices that are hard to detect.

However, as Demitri Sevastopulo and Robert Wright at the Financial Times suggest, non-U. S. observers are skeptical of this explanation. They note that the U.S. has not been forthcoming about whether the ban is based on recent intelligence or long-standing concerns. There is also no explanation for why electronic devices in the cabin are a concern and electronic devices in the baggage hold are not.

It may not be about security. Three of the airlines that have been targeted for these measures — Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways — have long been accused by their U.S. competitors of receiving massive effective subsidies from their governments. These airlines have been quietly worried for months that President Trump was going to retaliate. This may be the retaliation.

These three airlines, as well as the others targeted in the order, are likely to lose a major amount of business from their most lucrative customers — people who travel in business class and first class. Business travelers are disproportionately likely to want to work on board the plane. The likely result of the new policy is that many of them will stop flying on Gulf airlines and start traveling on U.S. airlines instead.

As the Financial Times notes, the order doesn't affect only the airlines' direct flights to and from the U.S. — it attacks the "hub" airports that are at the core of their business models. This can be understood as a variant form of "weaponized interdependence." We live in an interdependent world, where global networks span across countries, creating enormous benefits, but also great disparities of power. As networks grow, they tend to concentrate both influence and vulnerability in a few key locations, creating enormous opportunities for states, regulators and nonstate actors who have leverage over those locations.

Gulf airlines have tried to defend themselves against political attacks from U.S. competitors by appealing to free trade principles. The problem is that standard free trade agreements, such as World Trade Organization rules, don't really apply to airlines (although they do apply to related sectors, such as the manufacture of airplanes). This has allowed the Gulf airlines to enjoy massive subsidies without having to worry too much about being sued in the WTO. However, it also makes it hard for Gulf states or the states of other affected airlines to take a WTO case against the new U.S. rules, even if these rules turn out to be motivated by protectionism and the desire to retaliate, rather than real underlying security questions.

If this were happening in a different sector, it would make for a pretty interesting case. States preserve carve-outs from international trade rules when they feel that their security is at stake. Would the U.S. prevail in a case like this, where there is a colorable security justification but there is also a very plausible argument that the real motivation doesn't have much to do with security? Or would the WTO defer to the United States' proposed justification? It's very likely that the Trump administration will make more unilateral rules that are justified using the language of national security but are plausibly motivated by protectionism, so we may find out.

Henry Farrell is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. Abraham Newman is associate professor of international politics at Georgetown University. They wrote this article for The Monkey Cage, an independent blog anchored by a group of political scientists from universities around the country and hosted by the Washington Post. See www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage..