On Monday, Americans witnessed a stunningly brazen act of what can only be called political gangsterism. Speaking from the White House, Donald Trump declared that for “security reasons” the popular video sharing platform TikTok—which is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance—would be “shut down” in the United States on September 15, unless it were purchased by Microsoft or another American firm. Moreover, since the government was effectively forcing the sale by threatening to shutter TikTok, Trump expected the U.S. Treasury to get a piece of the action—though the exact legal mechanism by which the government would take payment for this “service” was left vague. It’s worth quoting Trump’s explanation at length:
I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is, that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it’s China, essentially, but more than anything else, I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States. Because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen. Right now they don’t have any rights, unless we give it to ’em. So if we’re going to give them the rights, then it has to come into, it has to come into this country.
It’s a little bit like the landlord‐tenant [relationship]. Uh, without a lease, the tenant has nothing. So they pay what is called “key money” or they pay something. But the United States should be reimbursed, or should be paid a substantial amount of money because without the United States they don’t have anything, at least having to do with the 30%.
So, uh, I told him that. I think we are going to have, uh, maybe a deal is going to be made, it’s a great asset, it’s a great asset. But it’s not a great asset in the United States unless they have the approval of the United States. So it’ll close down on September 15th, unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it, and work out a deal, an appropriate deal, so the Treasury of the — really the Treasury, I suppose you would say, of the United States, gets a lot of money. A lot of money.
Let’s not mince words: This is the Mafia’s business model. “We’ll threaten your competitor, forcing them to sell the business cheap, but we expect our cut in return.” The national security powers of the executive branch are now officially muscle for hire.
But how—one might reasonably wonder—could an app best known for videos of teenagers dancing and lip‐syncing pose a national security threat in the first place? A threat so dire it justifies the use of emergency powers to close down an expressive platform used by millions of Americans every day? Can a president even do that?
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