Two days after President Trump told reporters that he plans to ban TikTok from the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in an interview with Fox News that executive action may soon be taken against many other apps owned by Chinese firms. Trump remarked to journalists aboard Air Force One on Friday that he could ban TikTok “with an executive order,” suggesting that the president has made up his mind about the popular short video platform. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, has been at the center of a months-long debate over whether the data that it collects from American users could be exploited by China’s government. The firm has enlisted a small army of lobbyists to play defense on its behalf in Washington, and has recently been in acquisition talks with corporations such as Microsoft in anticipation of becoming an American-owned subsidiary as a last resort. The means by which a ban might be implemented are unclear. One option is to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in order to forcibly delist TikTok from app stores. Doing so, however, would require Trump to declare a national emergency and seek approval from Congress, and might allow existing users to continue using the app. Trump could also order ByteDance to spin off TikTok, though this would amount to less of a ban and more of a mandate for TikTok to implement its current plans of becoming a Microsoft product. Whatever option the Trump administration pursues could set the precedent for more action against China-owned apps in general in the United States. During his interview with Fox on Sunday, Secretary Pompeo promised measures against “a broad array” of Chinese software in the coming days. One app in particular was singled out by name: WeChat, which Pompeo claimed was “feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party.” If China apps are indeed spying on Americans, then WeChat might be the single largest international data gathering op...
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