Days after signing an executive order against TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, US President Donald Trump has indicated that he was looking to ban other Chinese-owned companies, including e-commerce giant Alibaba in the United States.
The development came after Trump issued an executive order on August 14, requiring ByteDance to divest its interests in video-sharing app TikTok’s operations in the US within 90 days.
“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Trump said in the order.
The previous order could have forced US-based app stores to stop distributing the TikTok app if ByteDance did not reach a deal to divest from it in 45 days.
Under the latest order, ByteDance is expected to destroy all its copies of TikTok data attached to American users.
Earlier in August, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that the Trump administration is “working hard” to protect Americans from the threats of “untrusted vendors” such as TikTok and WeChat, which it wants to remove from US app stores like those operated by Apple and Google.
This comes amid heightened tensions between China and the US on a variety of issues including Hong Kong national security law, the South China Sea, coronavirus and trade.
In July, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June.
The 59 apps, most of which were Chinese, had been banned by the Indian government in view of the information available that they are engaged in activities which are “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence” of the country.