The US may lose in Trump’s TikTok War

Although Donald Trump's actions regarding TikTok could yield a short-term gain, they have introduced severe potential risks to US interests, not to mention to international and domestic rules of commerce. 

In short order, the TikTok app has emerged as a rival to WeChat in China, and to YouTube and Facebook in the US and elsewhere. Picture Illustration: Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty images

Following US President Donald Trump’s vow to block US access to TikTok, the popular short-video app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has been in frantic talks with Microsoft, presumably to sell its subsidiary quickly before the ban goes into effect.

Of course, it is possible – even likely – that Trump’s real intent is not so much to ban TikTok as to force a fire sale to a US buyer.