Biden signs an EO revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat and says his commerce secretary will investigate any risks to national security and privacy
But the apps still aren't out of hot water — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat.
Context & Ripple Effects
The administration is unwinding the earlier order to block transactions with ByteDance and WeChat rather than declaring the underlying concerns resolved. Biden’s action keeps TikTok and WeChat operating while moving the issue into a Commerce-led national-security and privacy review.
First-order effects
- TikTok and WeChat avoid the Trump-era transaction bans, while the Commerce secretary becomes responsible for examining the risks attached to both services.
- The Biden administration replaces a scheduled blanket restriction with an active review process focused on national security and privacy.
Second-order effects
- TikTok and WeChat must now engage with a Commerce review whose findings can shape their US operating conditions, rather than treating the revoked orders as a full regulatory clearance.
- For the executive branch, the shift creates a more targeted tool for addressing platform-security concerns than the prior transaction-block approach.
Third-order effects
- If this review-led approach persists, US policy toward foreign-owned platforms may rely less on immediate blanket bans and more on executive assessments that keep market access contingent on security and privacy findings.
The trend: US scrutiny of TikTok is moving toward executive-led security review as a mechanism for governing foreign-owned digital platforms.