The Biden administration’s US Department of Commerce on Monday (June 21, local time) said it would remove a list of banned transactions with TikTok and WeChat. This list of prohibited transactions was issued by the Trump administration last September to try to prevent new downloads of those two Chinese apps in the US.
Before officially abolishing the list of prohibited transactions mentioned above, President Joe Biden since early this June has withdrawn a series of Trump-era executive orders, which sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok applications. in US territory. Biden also ordered the Commerce Department to review security concerns raised by WeChat, TikTok and other apps.
The Commerce Department under President Trump has also sought to ban other transactions, including outright banning the use of WeChat in the US, and then sought to enforce similar restrictions to ban TikTok use.
President Biden’s executive order in early June required the Department of Commerce to monitor mobile software applications such as TikTok that could affect US national security, as well as requiring the Department of Commerce within 120 hours. must make recommendations to protect American data from being acquired by companies owned by foreign competitors.
WeChat is a popular social network and messaging app developed and operated by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holding. There is evidence that WeChat is a tool of censorship, surveillance and suppression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Biden’s executive order earlier this month retracts WeChat and TikTok-related executive orders that Trump issued in August 2020 and another, signed by the former president in January, that targets up to eight financial technology and media software applications.
The executive order Trump signed in January requires US officials to ban transactions with eight Chinese apps, including Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s QQ Wallet and WeChat pay. So far, however, the Biden administration has not issued any bans under Trump’s executive order.
The Trump administration has also appealed to the Supreme Court decisions by lower court judges blocking the TikTok and WeChat bans. However, after Mr. Biden entered office on January 20, the new administration’s Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to pause hearing those appeals of the previous government.
Even so, a US national security review of TikTok conducted by the Trump administration since 2019 is still underway.
