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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration said Friday it would ban Chinese-owned mobile apps WeChat and TikTok from U.S. app stores starting Sunday, a major blow to two popular services used by more than 100 million people in the United States. United.
The restrictions will prohibit the transfer of funds or the processing of payments through WeChat within the United States starting Sunday. In the case of WeChat, the restrictions will also prevent any company from offering Internet hosting, content delivery networks, Internet transit or traffic exchange services to WeChat, or from using the application code in other software or services in the United States.
Those same bans on the provision of services will take effect on November 12 for TikTok.
“Today’s actions demonstrate once again that President Trump will do everything in his power to ensure our national security and protect Americans from threats from the Chinese Communist Party,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
The actions follow an August 6 executive order from the president, in which he argued that TikTok and WeChat collect data from US users that could be accessed by the Chinese government.
TikTok is currently in talks to be acquired by US software maker Oracle, and could announce a deal that alleviates the administration’s national security concerns. In its announcement, the Commerce Department said the president had given until November 12 for TikTok’s national security concerns to be resolved, and if so, the bans on the order could be lifted.
TikTok declined to comment. Tencent and Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ross, in an interview on Fox Business Network, said that the ban would initially have a much bigger impact on WeChat.
“For all practical purposes, it will be closed in the US, but only in the US, starting at midnight on Monday,” Ross said.
TikTok will also face some changes, but it will still be allowed to run until Nov. 12, Ross said, at which point it would face the same ban as WeChat if there is no deal that satisfies management concerns.
“As for TikTok, the only real change from Sunday night will be that users will not have access to upgraded updated applications, updated applications or maintenance,” he said.
Ross described the threat of apps in strict terms, comparing the services to a window between the United States and China that allows Beijing to observe the daily lives of Americans.
“What they collect is data about the locality, data about where it is going, what its preferences are, what it refers to, each part of the behavior that the American side is adopting is made available to anyone who is looking from the other side”. he said. “That is what we are trying to silence.”
