PALO ALTO, U.S./HONG KONG — U.S. President Donald Trump has issued executive orders to ban any U.S. transactions with WeChat, the messaging app owned by Tencent Holdings, and ByteDance, owner of TikTok, within 45 days, describing the Chinese-owned companies as threats to national security.
“The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China . . . continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” said Trump in the two executive orders signed on Thursday.
“Additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency,” he added.
The orders intensify U.S. pressure on Chinese tech companies, after the U.S. published details this week of a “clean” network initiative to act against Beijing on a number of fronts, from app use to cloud storage.
They also appear to confirm that Microsoft, which is in talks with ByteDance to buy TikTok’s operations in the U.S. and several other countries, in effect has a 45-day window to reach a deal.
One executive order issued by Trump will prohibit any transaction between U.S.-based individuals or companies and ByteDance, whose TikTok video messaging app is extensively used in the US. The second prohibits any transaction with Tencent that relates to WeChat.
The definition of “transaction” will be clarified by the Secretary of Commerce, also in 45 days, according to the White House announcement.
Shares in Tencent, which is listed in Hong Kong and also traded in New York, fell almost 7%.
Trump accused TikTok and WeChat in the executive order of being espionage tools for Beijing to spy on the U.S. as they capture huge amounts of user data.
In addition, Trump said both apps are used for propaganda purposes as they reportedly censor “content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive and may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party.”
The order will likely force U.S. app stores including Google’s and Apple’s, to remove TikTok and WeChat. It is unclear whether using or downloading the apps will be prohibited in the U.S. after 45 days, according to legal experts.
“The specific impacts are not yet known and are subject to regulations to be issued by the Commerce Department . . .The restrictions may affect US person’s ability to use these apps or result in other, more tailored restrictions,” said Nicholas Turner, a Hong Kong-based counsel at law firm Steptoe & Johnson.
“Downloading the app is more likely to be banned because it involves signing a user agreement with the companies, which is a transaction by definition,” said Ye Jun, a partner at Chicago-based law firm Getech Law specializing in corporate and patent law.
“It is more difficult to ban the use of the apps. If users already have them on their phones, it is near impossible to ask them to delete or stop using, unless the U.S. can build a ‘great firewall’ to block them once for all,” Ye added.
The latest move by the administration will also put additional pressure on ByteDance to reach a deal with Microsoft. Trump said last week that if TikTok’s U.S. operation is not taken over by an American company by September 15, the app will be banned in the country.
ByteDance’s founder and CEO Zhang Yiming said in an internal company letter on Tuesday that the U.S. government’s real goal has always been banning the app instead of “forcing a sale of TikTok”.
TikTok has been highly popular among young Generation Z social media users in the U.S., where the app had been installed 180 million times as of early July, according to data from market research firm Sensor Tower, in a country of 328 million people.
While WeChat does not have as broad a user base in the U.S. as TikTok — of the app’s 279 million overseas downloads in the past six years, the U.S. contributed less than 7%, or 19 million — it is used by many Chinese living overseas as a tool for both personal and business communications.
However, Trump said the Chinese Communist party was using the app to “keep tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives.
Tencent declined to comment. ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment.
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