U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order banning American transactions with eight Chinese apps, including Ant Group’s popular ‘Alipay’ and Tencent Holdings’ "digital wallets."
The order is the outgoing Republican administration’s latest bid to use national security powers against China’s largest companies. However, it will be up to President-elect Joe Biden to decide whether to enforce the policy or cancel the executive order issued by Trump.
Regardless, Trump’s latest move deals another blow to Ant co-founder Jack Ma, who hasn’t been seen in public since Chinese regulators halted Ant’s $35 billion initial public offering (IPO) and launched an antitrust probe into Alibaba Group.
Trump’s latest app ban also harms relations between the world’s two largest economies, which have clashed over everything from the pandemic to Hong Kong democracy protests. The executive order, which directs the Commerce Department to draft rules outlining which payments and transactions will be outlawed, will hit Tencent’s Wallet and WeChat Pay as well as lesser-known apps CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate and WPS Office.
China quickly responded to Trump’s app ban, accusing the U.S. of abusing its powers and being a bully. Its actions only harm American consumers, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily briefing in Beijing.
The order is likely to face legal challenges similar to those mounted against the president’s prior efforts to force the sale of TikTok from China’s ByteDance Ltd. and ban the WeChat messaging app. But Biden could erase the policy upon taking office later in January.
