


In response to that executive order, TikTok sued successfully, arguing that Trump lacked the authority to regulate it under a series of modifications to the IEEPA, known as the Berman Amendments. companies from engaging in certain transactions with TikTok, including the provision of web hosting services and the distribution of the app in app stores. But in 2020, President Trump went further, forbidding U.S. The law is “an extremely powerful tool that Presidents have used I don’t know how many dozens and dozens of times,” said Joel Richard Paul, professor of constitutional and national security law at UC Law San Francisco.Įxecutive orders by both Presidents Trump and Biden establish that the foreign ownership of certain tech companies constitutes a national emergency. The IEEPA, or International Emergency Economic Powers Act, empowers the President to declare a national security emergency, and then use his executive powers to regulate (or forbid) potentially risky commercial transactions with foreign entities. This is the route that the Trump Administration took in 2020. Option I Biden Could Ban The App, Or Force A Sale, Under A National Emergency Declaration If the government does require or threaten a ban, here are a few different ways it might do so - and a few legal challenges TikTok might mount in response.

A yet less restrictive possibility - still potentially involving a ban - would be that the government agrees to a mitigation contract, but on the condition that if its terms are broken, ByteDance must divest within a certain number of days. Perhaps more likely than a prohibition on using the app would be a law directing Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores (which some lawmakers and regulators have already called on the tech giants to do) unless a sale is completed within a given timeline. It’s useful to specify what a “ban” would mean.
