Is protectionism really a bad thing, especially if it's in retaliation to chinese protectionism?
The president might not have the authority to force a sale, but he does have the authority to impose tariffs and maybe even ban it outright (embargos/quotas). At the end of the day the results are the same: you can either sell your US operations to a US company, or we can destroy your US market share by imposing tariffs and/or banning your product.
Tit-for-tat protectionism is also known as a trade war, which is also generally considered to be negative for both parties.
It is, but if you fail to retaliate you're basically advertising to other countries that they can impose protectionist measures, which benefit them and harm you. Did EU/Canada get flak for imposing retaliatory tariffs in response to trump's tarrifs?
So we just let China copy our tech and sell it to us cheaper?
What happens to our workforce and salaries? The same thing that happened to factory workers?
I'm even more worried about their lack of free speech, rigid punishment/enforcement, and Orwellian tracking/social credit. We don't want those things here. But showing that they win makes it more likely to become pervasive.
Edit: Downvotes on everything critical of China.
Ideally, people could work less and have the same standard of living, which is easier if things are cheaper.
If I was an evil wealthy person interested in perpetuating my position through controlling people, but slavery was outlawed, I'd design a system where work is overvalued so people will be too tired to participate in civic life.
Protectionism works depending where your POV is from.
Economists are short-sighted there. Yes, economically, speaking in general protectionism is more harmful than not.
But things like selling essential companies, infrastructure or have foreign and possible hostile players in critical positions is risky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkHdq_2EUk4
He talks more about it in the series, Free to Choose. I forget which video he does so, but all videos are fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcm84hKEpyZQfhxhVFB8r...
I would argue that, given their history, removing the opportunity of the CCP to make a political play is a valid security concern.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/biggest-social-media-operation-y...
Forbes even ridiculed the idea completely 2 years ago https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/09/22/these-two-...
If that's the real reason, well enough. But I am somewhat skeptical that it is. I'm also not sure that the President's power ought to extend to hypothetical, remote concerns like this -- we'll have to see what the courts say.
The security rationalization had existed for a long time already, but only when the political rationalization came into the picture as well was it possible to actually make a move. Does that mean the move was wrong or unjustified?
> I'm also not sure that the President's power ought to extend to hypothetical, remote concerns like this -- we'll have to see what the courts say.
I'm not sure it does. Like you say this is currently being challenged in the courts and TikTok is online right now in the US. The legal process is working, although it was initiated in a messy way in this case.
It depends on the strength of the various components in the making of the decision, I guess. Again, if the main reason was political or economic, and the presence of the security reason is a fig leaf, then that's not so good.
It is as simple as Trump, personally, saw a TV pundit at 6am that said TikTok was bad and the president should do something about it.
Did someone at Facebook PR plant that story in the pundit's program, which is for sale? Sure. I don't know, who do you think gives a single fuck about giant companies fucking each other? Not a single normal person.
What will courts say? The matters could all be resolved in 10 minutes. They're just going to say that if there's a problem, it's with the way the order is written - Trump could issue another order. They articulate no legal problem with the order, because there is no legal problem with the order.
Truthfully, the court's resolution of the matter is the least interesting part here.
The president's power is being used to affect a corporate acquisition. You can go have a debate about mercantilism, it's settled. Nothing of substance to normal people will change because 100% of the spending inside social media apps is surplus, they could disappear tomorrow and absolutely nothing of value would be lost. People would just buy ad inventory elsewhere, as they always had for all of history.
Banning TikTok was only a "heavily political play" because there are strong political forces in place preventing any action from being taken against China. Anything which is able to overcome those forces is bound to be "heavily political". That doesn't necessarily mean the action was the wrong thing to do.
Was this intended to be directed at the CCP? It seems to apply to the US Republican Party to some extent as well [1].
Not sure if the security concerns of a presidential campaign would necessarily extend to banning the app for all contexts in the country, even those where security impinges less.