For three years, President Trump has belied his tough public rhetoric against the Chinese Communist Party with action and private correspondences with Xi Jinping. He claimed he wanted to take the dictatorial regime down a peg in the global economy but withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership specifically designed to empower the Pacific rim against Chinese trading dominance. He lambastes Joe Biden as weak on China but repeatedly devolves into sycophancy when engaged in China trade talks.
But at last, Trump has put his money where his mouth is, risking real electoral costs with sweeping executive orders to give WeChat and TikTok just 45 days for parent companies Tencent and ByteDance to sell the social media platforms to owners not under the rule and data surveillance of Beijing.
As with all high-stakes executive orders, Trump’s will likely be bogged down by legal challenges. But it signals a crucial shift in the Trump administration’s strategy in dealing with China.
Contrary to early reporting, the executive orders do not target Tencent’s other subsidiaries, meaning popular video games are safe stateside. But WeChat has over a billion users globally, and TikTok has nearly that many and counting. Both brands are answerable to Beijing, and Trump’s mandate marks a paradigm shift, a metaphorical foot finally put down on this notion that clandestine Chinese data aggregation of American civilians is a threat to national security.
The New York Times makes clear this is no Ukraine situation. Trump knows it’s a gamble, and he’s betting on America first, finally:
And now, Trump is baiting TikTok and all the Beijing bootlickers in the press to call his bluff a little more than a month before Election Day. It’s no longer tough talk, but targeted action against our contemporary Cold War foes.
