Trump cites India’s example to ban TikTok, Wechat apps

 

 

CITING India’s ban on the Chinese app TikTok, US President Donald Trump has ordered American companies to stop business dealings with it from September 20, effectively cutting off its lifeblood in the country.

 

The executive order late Thursday night came as Microsoft was in negotiations with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to buy its operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

 

By setting a deadline, the order puts pressure to speed up a possible transaction. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had spoken to Trump on Sunday about his company’s interest in buying TikTok and Trump had approved it. There are about 30 million TikTok users in the US.

 

Trump issued a similar order targeting Tencent, which owns the messaging app, WeChat. US will end reliance on China: Trump: THE US will end its reliance on China and other foreign nations for pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, President Donald Trump has said, asserting that Beijing would have to pay the price for the wound it has

inflected on America and the world by spreading the deadly coronavirus.

 

“What China did is a terrible thing. Whether it was incompetence or on purpose, it was a terrible thing that they did … not only to the United States, but to the world. A terrible thing,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday before flying to Ohio to visit a Whirlpool manufacturing plant.

 

President Trump and leaders of several countries have accused China of not being transparent in reporting the deadly disease, leading to huge human casualties and economic crisis across the world.

 

China, however, has denied US’ accusation of covering up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and accused America of attempting to divert public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.