WASHINGTON – As tensions rise with Beijing, President Donald Trump threatened Friday to ban TikTok from operating in the United States due to considerations of the social media platform’s ties to China.
“As far as TikTok is concerned, we are banning them in the United States,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when he returned from Florida on Friday night.
The president said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to ban Chinese society in the United States from Saturday.
Trump’s risk comes when the administration investigates the app’s parent company, ByteDance, collects knowledge from millions of U.S. users. Last year, the U.S. Navy suggested service members remove the application of government devices.
The president has long benefited from social media, Twitter and Facebook platforms, but has also ridiculed those companies, accusing their leaders of stifling conservative voices on their platforms.
The announcement comes weeks after Trump critics used TikTok to inflate expectations of expected turnout at the presidential rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a major embarrassment to the presidential campaign.
The risk comes at an incredibly frayed moment between the United States and China, as the president engaged in a month-long industrial war with the country and accused its leaders of allowing the coronavirus to spread in a pandemic. Tensions have been exacerbated by China’s crackdown on pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong.
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TikTok has stated in the past that it did not send any knowledge collected through users to China.
Although the social media app is owned by a Chinese company, the company said it was managed by an American CEO. U.S. officials have expressed fear that the Chinese government is exploiting non-public knowledge through U.S. cell phones in those smartphone apps.
In addition, the New York Times reported that Microsoft is in talks to win TikTok.