President Joe Biden reportedly signed an executive order on Wednesday that sets criteria for the U.S. administration in making risk assessments on applications belonging to outside companies. This will have an impact on Chinese -owned apps such as TikTok and WeChat.
Biden revoked and replaced three executive orders by former President Donald Trump that sought to ban any U.S. transactions with the app’s operating company, ByteDance.
Biden’s new executive order will direct the Commerce Department to review applications related to foreign -owned entities and classify whether the risks are acceptable or not. That includes criteria for evaluating transactions with software applications tied to foreign -owned entities/companies that are normally under the Foreign Investment Committee in the U.S. (CFIUS).
The order will consider transactions involving high risk. The order will consider transactions involving the use of the application or not.
The order also directs the Department of Commerce to work with other agencies to provide recommendations on how the government can protect U.S. consumer data. from foreign enemies. It requires the Commerce Department to recommend further executive action and legislation to address risk.
Under the Trump administration, TikTok was in a precarious position with Trump seeking to ban the app unless it was sold to an American company. Trump insisted he would only allow the app to continue to be used in the U.S. if ByteDance’s operations were sold to local companies like Oracle and Walmart. The collaboration between Walmart and Oracle will create a new company known as TikTok Global.
However, in February, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Oracle deal had been “delayed”. So far there has been no response from TikTok and WeChat.
