I am going to buck the left leaning think tanks on this.

Trump is justified to ban Tik Tok. The Chinese have banned google, Facebook, WhatsApp and I think even Amazon.

America has not reason to play nice with them. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363405/trumps-tiktok-ban-legal-corruption-free-speech-china

In the context of Economic warfare China is already ahead in manufacturing of basic goods, of electronics.

America retains two advantages at this point
1. Control of a large market
2. Tech winners in the software space.

They need to preserve their tech businesses.

In reality. They banned hauwei to protect Apple from being undercut by the Hauwei predatory pricing model.

Now they are banning Tik Tok to prevent Facebook, Snap, Twitter from being canibalised by Tik Tok.

I love Tik Tok. It’s great.

I don’t think any Chinese social network has any moral high ground when China has done the most to other social networks.

I don’t believe them when they say the Chinese government has no say or sway on them. That’s not the China we know.

Marc Andreessen famously said “software is eating the world”, it’s true and it’s important for a global power to make sure their country is not running on enemy software.