Under the law, Trump takes office on Jan 20, the day after the TikTok deadline.
In its decision, the DC Circuit wrote, “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”
TikTok has denied it has or ever would share US user data, accusing American lawmakers in the lawsuit of advancing speculative concerns, and has characterized the ban as a “radical departure from this country’s tradition of championing an open Internet.”
The dispute comes at a time of growing trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies after President Joe Biden’s administration placed new restrictions on the Chinese chip industry and China responded with a ban on gallium, germanium and antimony exports to the United States.
The US law would bar providing certain services to TikTok and other foreign adversary-controlled apps including offering it through app stores such as Apple and Alphabet’s Google, effectively preventing its continued US use unless ByteDance divests TikTok by the deadline.
An unimpeded ban could open the door to a future crackdown on other foreign-owned apps. In 2020, Trump also tried to ban WeChat, owned by Chinese company Tencent but was blocked by the courts.
