United States – TikTok was brought up as a cause for “ national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain” according to President Donald J. Trump upon signing the new executive order to ban and block all transactions in 45-days with ByteDance, the parent company of the video snippet start-up.
“The spread [of apps controlled by the Chinese government continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. The United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security.” the order reads.
The move was prompted when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented that the apps owned by China posed as a national threat in information and data gathered from people using their apps which squeezed WeChat, a texting messenger sparsely used in the U.S, into the executive order to safeguard the country from anything with Chinese ownership to hold American information.
The executive order came as shock as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had spoken to President Trump earlier about acquiring the TikTok bases in the U.S, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But stated that the deals were still in motion with nothing solid yet.
“There can be no assurance that a transaction which involves Microsoft will proceed.” stated Microsoft when asked about how the executive order would affect the deal.
Oracle stepped up to also try to plant their claim to TikTok in hopes of acquiring the most successful start-up company for 2020.
The September 20th deadline came with a planned caution as Microsoft was said to try and conclude it’s deals by September 15, giving them 5 days of leeway before the executive order takes effect.
Some portions of the government wish to contest the executive order worried it would affect the American market but were told they could bring the two orders to court but go through a lengthy and grueling process before even a verdict could be set , levying against the executive branch which could end disastrously as they mark all the Chinese owned entities on their “entity list”, sanctioning all transactions with the CCP ruled country like they did when they barred Huawei and ZTE from operating in the United States.
ByteDance may not suffer as bad as Huawei and ZTE did due to their business not requiring licenses but it could stunt their global market as President Trump follows in Indian Prime Minister Modi’s steps to curb Chinese digital control of data and information by taking out one of the most widely used Chinese apps in their states.
Tiktok may be forced to abruptly end service if no deals have been made before the executive order is activated on September 20th forcing many online influencers and content creators to start their search for new apps to utilize for their businesses.
