TikTok is urging a federal court to block US President Donald Trump from banning the video app, saying the move is motivated by election politics rather than legitimate national security concerns.
The Chinese-owned app — which is wildly popular in the US — has come under fire as tensions escalate between Beijing and Washington, with Trump threatening a ban if it is not sold to a US company.
Attorneys were yesterday set to argue the case before a judge, who is to decide whether to put Trump’s order on hold until a lawsuit over the ban is resolved.
Citing “confusing and contradictory statements about TikTok” by the president and other agencies, the motion for a preliminary injunction argues a ban is not motivated by “genuine national security concern, but rather by political considerations relating to the upcoming general election.”
TikTok, which became a global phenomenon with its brand of short, addictive phone videos, has about 100 million US users.
A deal to restructure ownership of the app was thrown into doubt on Monday when Trump vowed to block a deal that allows its Chinese parent firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) to retain any control.
The comments cast doubt over an agreement that had appeared to cut a way through the threatened ban.
The deal would make Silicon Valley giant Oracle Corp the data partner for TikTok, with retail giant Walmart Inc also taking a minority stake in a new entity to be called TikTok Global.
ByteDance yesterday said that it had applied for an export license with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, although it did not link the move to TikTok or any potential sale.
The ministry last month published new rules that added “civilian use” to a list of technologies that are restricted for export and require permission, which could complicate any sale.
Winning a temporary injunction typically involves convincing a judge that not intervening would allow irreparable harm to be done to a party likely to win the case.
TikTok would suffer “devastating harm” from which it could not recover if Trump’s ban is found to be unlawful, the motion says.
As US relations with China grew more contentious, Trump began targeting TikTok, the filing read.
The motion also speculated that TikTok had irked Trump because of reports the app was used by his critics to snatch up tickets to a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to which they had no intention of going.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS