Trump seen using TikTok for leverage

Experts: US President intends to force stake sale in app as bargaining chip

United States President Donald Trump is seemingly using TikTok, a popular social media platform owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, as a bargaining chip for Sino-US economic and trade relations, experts and market insiders said on Tuesday.

And a forced stake selloff through the use of political pressure deviates from the principles of market economy and fair competition, they said.

They said the US government uses so-called national security threats as an excuse to contain and crack down on Chinese companies operating in the US, which not only harms the legitimate rights and interests of these enterprises, but also disrupts healthy market order and impedes global economic growth.