Recently the popular app TikTok “became inaccessible because of a law passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress last year”. This ban caused the app to become unavailable to users, due to the supposed national security issues that it poses because of the app’s ties to China. For the app to continue to exist, ByteDance “TikTok’s Chinese parent company” had to sell its stake in the app. When ByteDance did not do so, the app was no longer accessible to US users. This was a decision that was met with a large amount of criticism due to the app’s popularity.
While many see the banning of TikTok as a national security issue, which is attributed as the primary reason for the decision, when you look closely at TikTok being banned it also heavily involves free trade. The concept of free trade means that “goods and services can be bought and sold across international borders with little or no government tariffs, quotas, subsidies, or prohibitions to inhibit their exchange.” This is something that banning TikTok inherently violates. The US government is banning the use of a service because it is owned by China.
The concept of using protectionism to punish a nation, especially an adversary, is not uncommon. One example is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since this event took place, “the scope and severity of U.S. sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia have expanded significantly.” Trade barriers, tariffs and sanctions are commonly used for a country that the US is not on good terms with. In the case of Russia, this makes a lot of sense.
However, China is currently a top trade partner with the United States. In 2022, “China was the top supplier of goods to the United States, accounting for 16.5 percent of total goods imports.” This shows that the United States has a large reliance on China. This fact also shows how significant the move for the US to ban TikTok is. For our government to deem it as such a threat for the people of the United States to use an app that collects data and is owned by China, then it shows that our reliance on them for trade is problematic. If China is such a threat, it does not bode well that the country is so reliant on them.
While many people are angry at the decision to ban TikTok, we should also consider what it says about the relationship between the United States and China. Assuming this was an informed and smart decision by our government, it shows that there are growing tensions between our two countries. It also introduces the idea of stopping more forms of trade with China. Regardless of if TikTok gets banned or not, we should all consider the larger picture of what it says about the relationship our country has with China.