14 DAY TRIAL // Banning Chinese apps in the United States isn’t as easy as President Donald Trump expected it to be, as the White House administration now has to deal with lawsuits involved two if its most recent targets.
TikTok, which is now in talks with Microsoft over a potential takeover, is challenging Donald Trump’s executive order in court, hoping to remove the sanctions if a deal with an American company isn’t reached y September 20.
On the other hand, there’s WeChat, Trump’s second target which according to the same executive order, should be banned and no longer allowed in app stores.
But the WeChat Users Alliance has decided to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming not only that the sanctions violate the right to free speech, but also that it’s aimed at users who turn to WeChat for communications with people in China.
The pro-WeChat movement
Users aren’t the only ones who call for President Trump to undo his executive order, as the industry itself expects their business to be hit if WeChat ends up being banned.
As one of the most popular apps in China, WeChat is seen as a must-have platform on mobile devices, and its removal would wreak havoc in the Apple world. Pulling WeChat from the App Store could cause a decline in iPhone sales by as much as 30 percent, analysts have warned, while the simple removal of the app in the United States could generate a drop of around 6 percent.
At this point, the bans aimed at TikTok and WeChat are worrying not only the parent companies but also the rest of the partners and users alike. If nothing changes, Trump’s executive orders could be received with anger by the Chinese government, who has already warned that they don’t agree with the aggressive takeover of ByteDance’s TikTok.