In the summer of 2020, US President Donald Trump developed a bizarre obsession with TikTok. Amid a pandemic, historic unemployment and racial unrest subsuming the country, the daily flood of headlines turned to the Chinese-owned social media app.
Trump had waged a years-long trade war and blamed China for the coronavirus outbreak. In August 2020, in an attempt to deal another blow to Beijing, Trump issued a pair of executive orders banning TikTok unless the app’s US business was sold to an American technology company.
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