Security News > 2021 > June > US Drops Trump Order Targeting TikTok, Plans Its Own Review

The White House dropped Trump-era executive orders intended to ban the popular apps TikTok and WeChat and will conduct its own review aimed at identifying national security risks with software applications tied to China, officials said Wednesday.

In revoking some of President Donald Trump's blanket-style orders against Chinese tech companies and replacing them with a narrower approach, the Biden administration has not actually weighed in yet on whether TikTok and other apps pose a danger to Americans.

A senior administration official said Wednesday that the Trump actions weren't "Always implemented in the soundest fashion" and the aim of the review is to set up clear criteria to evaluate specific data security and privacy risks for each app.

The new executive order should lead to a framework for protecting Americans' data from China, rather than targeting specific companies, and could pressure Congress to enact a data-security law in the years ahead, said Paul Triolo, a tech policy expert at the Eurasia Group consultancy.

A national-security review of TikTok by a government group called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, is ongoing.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has put on hold a case challenging Trump's TikTok divestment order.

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