Yes, Congress has given the President the power to “regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” [1], “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat” [2]. This is the power that Trump is purporting to exercise.
They also published Bytedance’s written complaint for injunctive relief, but it’s hard to know which arguments the judge accepted: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/tikto...
How far reaching does the rule of law go? Like the US is governed by rule of law, but when you bring in international elements, can all parties operate under rule of law ?
It seems almost in this case that the argument made by the US is actually that TikTok is not governed under an agreed upon rule of laws. Such as it needing to share information with the CCP or having to comply to any other of their wishes.
Also, rule of laws just means the laws define the regulations which apply equally to everyone (which means everyone that bought into the society which honors those laws). So the question here is, do the laws give the president the ability to block a foreign company in such situation? If not, then this should be blocked, though laws could be made to block the company as well, just not exclusively enacted by the president.