Trump widens US ban on Chinese apps as his term nears end
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps including Alipay and WeChat Pay in an escalation of a trade war that has been unfolding through most of his term.
The order, however, goes into effect in 45 days, nearly a month after Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the next president, so the fate of Trump's action is unclear.
The orders follow two others Trump signed in August banning dealings with the popular video app TikTok as well as the main WeChat messaging app. The fate of those apps in the U.S. is still unclear, and with just 15 days left until Inauguration Day, it will likely fall to Biden to deal with them — or not. The same goes for Tuesday's executive order.
A representative for Biden's office did not immediately return a message for comment Tuesday.
Alipay is a widely used digital wallet that is part of the empire of e-commerce billionaire and Ant Group founder Jack Ma. WeChat Pay is a rival service operated by tech giant Tencent. The others named in the order are CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate and WPS Office.
Trump's order cites unspecified concerns about the apps collecting Americans' personal and financial information and turning it over to China’s communist government.
The order marks the Trump administration’s latest attempt to hobble China, a rising economic superpower. Over the past several years, it has lashed out at China with tariffs that have sometimes roiled the U.S. stock market, blocked mergers involving Chinese companies and stifled the business of Chinese firms like Huawei, a maker of phones and telecom equipment.
China-backed hackers, meanwhile, have been blamed for data breaches of U.S. federal databases and the credit agency Equifax, and the Chinese government...
