President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on Aug. 14 to order the Chinese parent company of the TikTok app to divest its U.S. assets in 90 days and authorized U.S. officials to access the company’s premises to conduct an audit ensuring the company is not endangering national security.
The executive order is the latest in Trump’s campaign against the app, which U.S. officials and experts believe acts as spyware for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The order deems illegal the acquisition of the musical.ly app by ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company. ByteDance rebranded musical.ly as TikTok after the purchase.
