The United States government through the Commerce Department said it has been directed by the President Donald Trump to ban all US transactions with Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok effective Sunday.
Following the announcement by TikTok earlier this week that it had opted to partner with Oracle instead as a computing partner instead of outrightly selling to Microsoft, many had thought the deal may have been acceptable to the American President. In the deal, Oracle was to provide the computing services in addition to a 20 percent stake in the Chinese social media app but it looks like that wasn’t appealing to the United States government.
So this means that downloads of the apps will be blocked from Sunday by the US authorities but it is not clear at this time if this means there cannot be a deal before the deadline or it could simply just mean that the American government is still maintaining its position of the short video service being wholly owned by a US entity. The deal even if ratified in the United States would have still needed a Chinese government approval as well.
“At the President’s direction, we have taken significant action to combat China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data, while promoting our national values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of U.S. laws and regulations.” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement Friday.
There is still a lot we don’t know about the new order but as we learn more, we will bring it to you.
