Thank you for bringing the Great Firewall into the discussion, because it is pretty important that we have that context. I think this is actually a lot more relevant to the conversation than any notion of seeking to negate a competitive advantage.

Recently, it occurred to me that the Great Firewall could be more of a tool for foreign policy, not domestic policy. If China for instance wanted to attack US's critical infrastructure, they could do so without damaging their own. Russia has recently employed such a system for their country's internet services, if I recall correctly.

It may very well be that this is what is motivating the TikTok madness here in the US. Left to their own devices, perhaps the fear is that China will weaponize TikTok against its US users, with no way to "great firewall" ourselves from those outcomes. Since we cannot use this strategy without angering the rest of the world on the "open internet" we have to resort to different measures.

There was an argument that TikTok was already weaponized for the election. The suppression of voices that are against the CCP or in the case of the US TikTok could upplay or downplay voices that it wanted heard. I.e. meddling in foreign elections.

In what way? I went through a TikTok phase a few months ago. The most salient thing I noticed was the total absence of political content, relative to Facebook/Twitter.

A trade ban would be enough to dissuade them from operating in the USA. It would basically be equivalent to a narrow trade sanction w/ a tariff or tax for any leaks.