Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
I.
Last week I wrote about some of the forces putting the squeeze on TikTok — and, uncharacteristically for me when I write about TikTok, the course of events did not immediately reverse and put TikTok into a stronger position. Instead, by several measures, the situation for ByteDance’s popular video app got significantly worse.
For starters, Peter Navarro, an adviser to the president, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that he expects President ***** will take “strong action” against TikTok and a fellow Chinese-made social app, WeChat. Worse from ByteDance’s perspective is that Navarro said the United States will not back down even if TikTok is sold to an American buyer. Here’s Bloomberg:
The ***** administration is “just…