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Why Trump’s ban on WeChat and TikTok will fail

Banning the popular mobile apps will only fan tensions between the US and China and spark blowback against American companies.

Analysis | Asia-Pacific

The Trump administration is moving ahead with its ban on the popular Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok. This is a significant step in what has become a growing consensus in Washington that the two largest economies in the world need to create a different framework for their relationship to continue on equal footing.

There is some merit to confronting China on a whole host of economic issues, such as forced technology transfers, theft of intellectual property, and subsidies to national champions like Huawei that give an unfair advantage to Chinese companies over their American and European counterparts.

But banning TikTok and WeChat does little to advance any of Washington’s long-term strategic objectives and amounts to nothing more than playing whack-a-mole with two widely popular apps that could force China to take retaliatory actions that negatively affect American consumers and companies.  

WeChat is much more than a social media platform for China — messaging is just one aspect of what it does. It is used to book flights and hotels, facilitate payments, and it acts as a gaming platform. It is PayPal, WhatsApp, Amazon, Expedia, and PlayStation rolled into one portal and  averages 1.2 billion monthly users. American businesses in China such as Starbucks, McDonalds, and Nike depend heavily on its payment platform to conduct their China-related business. 

The app works differently in the United States and is mostly used by Chinese Americans and Chinese citizens who live, study, and work here. The Trump administration is right to be concerned about how China censors the content that is disseminated on the app. WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, is close to the Chinese Communist Party, and, as with Huawei, there is always a fear that Chinese regulators could force the transfer of personal information of the app’s users.

But banning the app does little to resolve any of those concerns. Rather, it is a giant leap toward a tech cold war that would bifurcate the world between U.S. and Chinese tech powerhouses. It gives China a powerful incentive to block or ban American companies from doing business in China.

Take Apple, the world’s largest company by market capitalization — more people buy Apple smartphones in China than in the United States, and most of Apple’s assembly plants are based in China. What would happen if WeChat decided to stop allowing its app to be downloaded on Apple’s operating system? A phone in China without WeChat is worthless, and Apple’s customer base there would evaporate overnight as Chinese customers flock to alternatives. This would have a dramatic effect on Apple’s bottom line. 

China has foreshadowed a bit of what it could do when the Trump administration demanded that China's ByteDance, the parent company of the popular app TikTok — which has over 100 million U.S. users — to sell its U.S. operations. Beijing’s regulatory watchdog ruled that TikTok’s valuable algorithm could not be a part of any sale. Without that algorithm, it is unclear that an actual sale of TikTok would be of any value. It is the code within the algorithm that uses advanced machine learning (AI) to direct content with which it believes the user is most likely to interact with. The Trump administration has signaled over the weekend that it will approve a deal that will spin TikTok off from ByteDance into an American company, but it’s still unclear if China will approve the deal.

Is it really going to be Washington’s policy that every time China produces an innovative tech company, the U.S. president will ban it? What will that do for technological innovation which has always benefited from global collaboration? As China’s tech sector becomes increasingly advanced and sophisticated, will we erect our own version of a “a great fire wall” and deny their apps to U.S. users?

A better strategy would be to develop coherent criteria for determining what information U.S. and international tech firms can collect from users and how and under what circumstances that information can be shared. The U.S. can work with like-minded allies such as the European Union, Japan, and South Korea — whose technology architecture is intertwined with it — to come up with universal principles and then demanding all companies that seek access to U.S. tech platforms adhere to that standard.

Such a policy would be far more equitable, and beneficial to both American and Chinese companies and users than going through the pain of decoupling which will only accelerate a tech cold war.   


Image: rafapress via Shutterstock.com
Analysis | Asia-Pacific
Trump Zelensky
Top photo credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com

Blob exploiting Trump's anger with Putin, risking return to Biden's war

Europe

Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

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Syria sanctions
Top image credit: People line up to buy bread, after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Lifting sanctions on Syria exposes their cruel intent

Middle East

On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

The significance of this statement lies not solely in the relief that it will bring to the Syrian people. His remarks revealed an implicit but rarely admitted truth: sanctions — often presented as a peaceful alternative to war — have been harming the Syrian people all along.

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The 8-point buzzsaw facing any invasion of Taiwan
Taipei skyline, Taiwan. (Shutterstock/ YAO23)

The 8-point buzzsaw facing any invasion of Taiwan

Asia-Pacific

For the better part of a decade, China has served as the “pacing threat” around which American military planners craft defense policy and, most importantly, budget decisions.

Within that framework, a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan has become the scenario most often cited as the likeliest flashpoint for a military confrontation between the two superpowers.

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