Trump banned TikTok and WeChat. Are video games next?

A large crowd at the eSports League of Legends World Championship at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Oct 29, 2016. Disentangling the Chinese and US gaming markets, the world’s two largest, would be massively difficult, Blickensderfer added. — Los Angeles Times/TNS

US President Donald Trump’s two executive orders targeting Chinese companies went public just after 6pm Pacific time on Aug 6.

The first went after TikTok, to no one’s surprise. The video app had been the subject of intensifying rhetoric from the Trump administration for weeks. The order declared that all US entities would be banned from doing business with parent company ByteDance starting in 45 days – a deadline that may serve mostly to put a shot clock on Microsoft’s negotiations to buy TikTok.