Tick Tock, TikTok

Russel Brandom, reporting for The Verge:

 President Trump has signed a new executive order which will block all transactions with Bytedance, TikTok’s parent corporation, in an effort to “address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain.” It isn’t effectively immediately, but has a 45 day deadline.

“The spread [of apps controlled by the Chinese government] continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” the order reads. “The United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security.”

Did Trump make this decision because his understands that TikTok is a national security threat? No. He made this decision because he’s a small person: he’d probably never even heard of TikTok before a bunch of teenagers hurt his feelings by using it to screw up his rally by bloating the number of expected attendees by requesting tickets despite not intending to attend.

But, would the U.S. better off without TikTok? Yes, we would. And 45 days isn’t a ton of time to arrange an international business acquisition.