TikTok deal must benefit US and provide total security, says Donald Trump

The US President Donald Trump on August 13 reportedly said that any deal to sell Chinese-owned social media app TikTok to an American company must substantially benefit the nation and provide ‘total security’. Trump’s statement comes after he issued an executive order banning American citizens and businesses from doing any transaction with TikTok, its parent company ByteDance Ltd., and messaging app WeChat. 

Trump ordered vague bans on dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok and WeChat, saying that they are a threat to the US national security, foreign policy and economy. The executive order signed last week would be taking effect in September. 

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Meanwhile, as per reports, TikTok and its US employees are planning to take Trump’s administration to court over the sweeping order to ban the popular video app. Mike Godwin, who is an Internet policy lawyer representing the employees, reportedly said that it is unclear what the order will mean for the app’s 100 million US users. He further also added that it’s also unclear if it will make it illegal for the Chinese-owned company to pay its roughly 1,500 workers in the US. 

Executive order signed within ‘due process’ 

TikTok, in a reported statement, said that it was ‘shocked’ by the recent order as it was issued without any due process. The company noted that the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution safeguard life, liberty and property from arbitrary government action lacking ‘due process of law’. While Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok, in a potential sale that’s being forced under Trump’s threat ban, TikTok reportedly said that it spent nearly a year to engage in ‘good faith’ with the US government to address its concerns. 

The company said, “What we encountered instead was that the Administration paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses”. 

READ: Facebook, Snap Mull Dubsmash Acquisition As Microsoft Plans To Buy TikTok

Chinese Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, said that the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump to force a sale of TikTok within 45 days is “sheer gangster logic” and “daylight robbery”. Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said in an interview that the Trump administration is taking actions against the Chinese video-sharing social networking service on the basis of the presumption of guilt.

Le asserted that TikTik is simply a platform for the American public to showcase their talent and spread joy and has nothing to do with national security. He accused the US government of ganging up like “tigers preying on a little rabbit” to suppress private Chinese company. He said that the whole world is “watching with contempt the looting and robbery by the United States”.

(Inputs & Image: AP) 

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