The United States engaged in a trade war against China under the Trump administration. This should continue under the presidency of Joe Biden but the case of TikTok is once again on hiatus today.
US President Donald Trump launched a massive trade war against the Middle Kingdom and blacklisted many Chinese tech companies on the grounds of threats to the country’s security. Giants like Huawei are in a very delicate position today. TikTok had to pay the price, having to sell its American operations to an American company, but… Today, there is still change.
US Pauses TikTok Sale to US Company (Again)
In 2020, we felt like TikTok’s days on American soil were numbered. At least in its current configuration. Indeed, the Trump administration wanted to ban the application from its territory. That being said, she ended up coming up with a compromise, one in which ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, could sell TikTok to a company based in the United States. Several companies had then been considered but this sale was not successful.
Time to study how to protect Americans’ data in the eyes of the Chinese government
Today, with the Biden administration, it looks like the situation could still change. The sale of TikTok to a possible US company has been put on hold. At least, that’s what we learn from an article in The Wall Street Journal which explains that the Biden administration will put this project on hold while they study potential options concerning their way of approaching the security of the data.
The report claims that US national security officials are in contact with ByteDance and are analyzing how data collected from US users can be protected and how this could be done so that the Chinese government cannot access it.
According to National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne, “We intend to establish a comprehensive approach to securing US data to manage all of the threats we face. This includes the risk posed by Chinese applications and other software that operate in the United States. In the coming months we will study several specific cases in light of a comprehensive understanding of the risks that threaten us. ”