President Trump has announced that TikTok will be banned from operating within the United States on September 15, unless it is sold to an American company. Additionally, Microsoft has officially confirmed that talks have been held with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, regarding an acquisition. The events are part of a long-standing and global-level concern about Chinese surveillance operations, especially with regard to TikTok.
TikTok has acted to assuage concerns, assuring its avid users that it is not going to abandon them. The statement came as rumors regarding discussions with Microsoft began to surface in response to ongoing statements from the Trump administration regarding an impending ban against the company. The application had recently been banned in India as well, due to similar security concerns.
As The New York Times reports, some within the Trump administration feel that additional steps should be taken to neutralize the threat that they believe TikTok presents to American national security interests, such as requiring Microsoft to divest from other Chinese holdings. Microsoft is feared to have enabled Chinese surveillance in the past through other products, such as Skype. Nonetheless, today’s announcement regarding the September 15 deadline adheres to the requirements of the Committee on Foreign Investment In the United States (CFIUS), a body that analyzes trade deals for national security risks. Reuters originally reported on that CFIUS issued a 45-day time window for acquisition talks between ByteDance and Microsoft; the talks regard Microsoft taking control of TikTok within the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Trump, TikTok, Microsoft, & Political Strategy
The interaction involves bureaucratic actors, business executives across the Pacific, hordes of TikTok obsessed youth, as well as anxieties about the growing economic, political, and surveillance powers of China. Allowing talks to continue without taking harsh action to interrupt the process, seemingly to the chagrin of members of the administration that are warier about the potential for ongoing Chinese surveillance through the application, is actually quite smart for the often more boisterous President of the United States.
If the deal goes through, the President can clearly claim to have played a vital role in capturing a key portion of TikTok for an American company while reducing Chinese surveillance capabilities, though the veracity of the second half of that statement remains suspect. However, Trump apparently, as the AP reports, also made an unprecedented statement regarding a potential requirement that the U.S. Treasury receive a cut of the deal from a potential Microsoft acquisition of TikTok. His advisors were quick to brush the statement under the rug, thereby actually sustaining his record of abnormal and potentially concerning political behavior. Thus, the TikTok acquisition talks continue though uncertainty remains about how the political situation will play out between now and September 15.
Source: NYT