Donald Trump is not leaving any stone unturned to strain the political tensions between China and America more. Already both the economical giants are in a cold trade war that is getting worse with each passing day. And now, it seems that before leaving office, Trump decided to put another nail in this coffin. He has recently signed an executive order to ban transactions with famous Chinese payment apps including Alipay, QQ Wallet, and WeChat Pay. Apart from these apps, some other apps like Tencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate, and WPS Office also see a ban in the US.
The US administration was already in a tiff with TikTok’s owner company, ByteDance, and Huawei. And now, transactions with these eight apps have also been banned, much to the dismay of the Chinese American citizens who use these apps for communication and payments. However, this order will be effective after 45 days.
A Threat To The National Security
Previously, TikTok was accused of intrusive collection of American users’ data and then forwarding it to the Chinese government because of its alliance with its parent company, a Chinese conglomerate, ByteDance. The situation got so worse that Trump had ordered ByteDance to either sell off its US operations and assets to some US investors or face a permanent ban.
While ByteDance was ready to comply, the Chinese government did not take this matter lightly and issued their own set of restrictions on the export of technology.
Now, the same reason has been cited by the Trump administration for imposing a ban on these apps. As per Donald Trump, the US must take aggressive steps against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications. These apps are a threat to the US national security and the US government must ensure that it takes proper steps to protect their national security.
The US Commerce Department also added some companies to the trade blacklist.
In December 2020, the US Commerce Department added the Chinese top-notch chipmaker company SMIC and the Chinese drone maker company, DJI Technology along with dozens of other companies to a trade blacklist.
Trump’s administration has also effectively restricted some Chinese and Russian companies who are accused of having ties with their militaries from importing sensitive American technology and other stuff.
China has denied all these accusations and has said time and again that none of these companies share any users’ data with the Chinese government. However, it is not a secret too that the Chinese government has some tenacious ways to get information if they want. So, trusting them completely is a little difficult anyway.
However, all these apps are very famous and widely used in the US. So, banning them completely and severing trade ties with Chine more will be a little challenging for Joe Biden’s government
A few days back, NYSE announced to delist three Chinese telecom giants, but the decision has been reversed now.
New York Stock Exchange had decided to delist China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom along with President Trump’s executive order. However, it has reversed its decision because of a lack of proof against these companies. However, this did not sit well with the US Treasury as they believe that this reversal of the decision is to undermine Trump’s order.

I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.