What Went Down: Tik Tok Deal and US-China Relations

So, what went down last week on the TikTok deal? 

Back in the Fall of 2020, the Trump administration threatened to ban the app from the United States unless ByteDance, the owners of TikTok, sold its most lucrative subsidiary to an American-owned company or divest its U.S. operations. Prospective buyers in the original TikTok deal included Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. but with the election of President Biden, this deal might be completely off the table. ByteDance has been pleading its case to the federal district courts and has offered different alternatives, such as reworking its security measures to better protect its users in the U.S.; however, their appeals have come to no avail until just recently. The federal district court granted an injunction on Trump’s original ban on TikTok, citing that President Trump might have been overstepping his executive power in invoking the ban. TikTok’s debacle was merely an episode of growing U.S.-China tensions that have challenged President Trump and will challenge many administrations to come.  

In a surprising turn of events, the Biden administration has put the federal court’s injunction on ice. The administration is still pursuing its own review on the potential security risks of TikTok before deciding to move forward with the injunction or contest it. As TikTok awaits its fate in the new administration, its executives have been in talks with the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S. (CFIUS) on more alternatives. Recent talks have mentioned the potential employment of a third-party to manage its data, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Either way, the deal will represent the administration’s stern stance on foreign businesses in the near future. With a multitude of immigration acts going through Congress, President Biden is hoping to ease immigration restrictions set forth by Trump. However, Biden’s policies on the immigration of business interests are still quite the same as his predecessor’s.