Chinese officials intend to bring up Trump’s bans on US hosting and transactions with the two apps on national security grounds.
Image credit: Koshiro K/Shutterstock
Trade negotiators from the United States and China will discuss the progress of their trade agreement in the next few days. Chinese officials intend to bring up Trump's prospective bans on transactions with the TikTok and WeChat apps on national security grounds, according to Bloomberg.
In addition to these two hot topics, agricultural purchases and the dollar-yuan exchange rate will also be discussed. The virtual meeting is likely to be held this week. The date has not yet been determined.
The US President Donald Trump unveiled bans on US interaction with TenCent, the creators and owners of messaging app WeChat. According to the financial reports for the second quarter of 2020 released by Tencent, the combined monthly active users of WeChat and its Chinese version Weixin reached 1.21 billion. Tencent claims that the US revenues account for less than 2% of global revenues, and US businesses account for less than 1% of its total advertising revenues.
The "one area we are engaging is trade," Larry Kudlow, director of the White House's National Economic Council, said at a White House press conference Tuesday. "It's fine right now."