Trump imposes ban on US transactions with WeChat, TikTok

WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump announced sweeping bans on transactions with China’s ByteDance, owner of video-sharing app TikTok, and Tencent operator of the WeChat app within 45 days,

The executive order is a major escalation of tensions with Beijing as the Trump administration said it was stepping up efforts to purge Chinese apps from US digital networks and called the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok and messenger app WeChat as “significant threats.”

Tiktok has come under fire over national security concerning data collection. Trump issued the orders under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that grants the administration sweeping power to bar US firms or citizens from trading or conducting financial transactions with sanctioned parties.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said efforts on a program called “Clean Network” would focus on five areas and include steps to prevent various Chinese apps, as well as Chinese telecoms companies, from accessing sensitive information on American citizens and businesses.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will identify transactions covered by the prohibition after the order takes effect in mid-September. There are only about 3 million WeChat users in the United States, mostly Chinese.

Trump said this week he would support the sale of TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft if the US government got a “substantial portion” of the sales price but nevertheless said he will ban the service in the United States on 15th September.

There are 100 million TikTok users in the United States and Republicans have raised concerns about the political fallout of banning the popular app in the United States.

The TikTok app may be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, and the United States “must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security,” Trump said in one order.

In the other, Trump said WeChat “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”