#129 Trump's TikTok Shenanigans
In this edition of Technopolitik, Lokendra Sharma explores some of the inherent contradictions in Trump’s dealings with TikTok in lieu of recent developments in US-China relations.
This newsletter is curated by Adya Madhavan.
Technopolitik: Dissecting Trump’s TikTok Contradiction
— Lokendra Sharma
When Trump announced 25 per cent additional tariffs on India because of the latter's oil imports from Russia, the move was widely decried as being inconsistent. As has been reported in national and international media platforms, and also pointed out directly to the US trade advisor, China is the largest importer of Russian oil. But China has been given a reprieve of yet another 90 days.
Even as this issue has been covered in great detail by media organisations, the other incoherent approach vis-a-vis China has not seen its due share of attention. I argue that this other contradiction is Trump inexplicably allowing TikTok to function in the US, despite the bipartisan law requiring a ban and the US Secretary of State voicing serious threats in his previous role as a senator.
From threat to law
‘TikTok is a major threat to U.S. national security.’ That is how the US secretary of state Marco Rubio had described TikTok in a 2022 opinion piece for the Washington Post that he co-authored with fellow republican Mike Gallagher. At that time, Rubio was a US senator campaigning fiercely against TikTok. In the same article, they criticised Biden for exploring a deal that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without a change in ownership. In a separate opinion piece for Newsweek in 2024, Rubio displayed acute awareness about the information warfare concerns stemming from TikTok. He exhorted: ‘The evidence is clear that the Chinese Communist Party uses it to manipulate and spy on Americans through TikTok.’
It was a concerted campaign by Marco Rubio and other US lawmakers cutting across party lines that led to a law banning TikTok unless its US operations were sold by its Chinese parent ByteDance within a year. It was former president Biden that signed it into a law in April 2024. Even the US Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban law in January 2025.
Trump 2.0 and TikTok’s second life
The irony was quite stark when the newly sworn-in president, Trump, in January 2025, decided to use his executive powers to not enforce the TikTok ban and give multiple extensions to the company to reach a deal with the US. This, too, in an administration that anointed a China-hawk and long-standing campaigner against TikTok as secretary of state.
For the ban to come into effect, American companies were legally required to stop offering their services to TikTok. This would mean app stores run by Google and Apple would remove TikTok, while cloud providers would stop offering their service to the banned app. But as Trump continues to defy the US Congress, his administration’s attorney general Pam Bondi has reportedly promised a legal liability waiver to select American companies for continuing to support TikTok.
As the editorial board of the New York Times describes Trump’s incoherent approach towards China and TikTok: ‘Mr. Trump has shown himself unwilling to confront China on TikTok for selfish reasons.’
India and Trump’s tech shenanigans
Trump’s inconsistent approach towards TikTok is not an isolated occurrence. In the AI chips sector too, Trump has recently reversed bipartisan policy of targeting China via export controls. The US has paused some of the export controls on Nvidia chips while at the same time reportedly reached a deal to partake in a 15 per cent cut from Nvidia and AMD’s chip sales in China. On the other hand, Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on iPhones manufactured and imported from India, a country with which the US has a long-standing tech partnership. As Ashwin Prasad and I have argued for our recent op-ed for India’s World magazine, in the face of Trump’s tech shenanigans, India should learn from its space and nuclear sectors and build on its foundational capabilities in the tech domain by collaborating with other players until the window of collaboration closes. On the TikTok front, India should continue to ban TikTok in the country due to information warfare concerns. Neither US pressure nor the continued operation of TikTok in the US should alter India’s approach to TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance which is required by law to share data with the ruling communist party.