In a recent Chamber of Commerce survey to American companies operating in China, nine out of ten respondents felt that the ban could significantly harm their business if it were extended to China.
Just last month, TikTok sued the U.S. government over claims that it violated the company’s First Amendment rights with a previous executive order put out by the Trump administration.
“The order specifically justifies targeting TikTok based in part on the content of the videos hosted on TikTok, citing concerns about videos on ‘politically sensitive’ topics and videos about the ‘origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,’” said TikTok’s lawyers familiar with the lawsuit.
TikTok’s future remains uncertain
Friday’s app ban is not the end all be all of TikTok and WeChat. A senior official at Commerce has made it clear that their department would be willing to “change or even potentially remove the restrictions [on TikTok] if the president agrees to a deal.”
This puts the ball in the court of the negotiators in the ongoing Oracle-ByteDance deal. ByteDance has reportedly worked to address the White House’s national security concerns by making the deal more palatable.
