Donald Trump wants his second stage in the Oval Office to be very different from his first when it comes to Silicon Valley. Beyond his close relationship with Elon Musk, the Republican wants to leave behind the constant disagreements with the technological emperors that marked his first four years as president. He has extended his hand to them and they have taken it. A strategy in which he must overcome two large stones in the path that Joe Biden has left him.
These are two potentially historic decisions that the Trump administration will have to navigate and that could affect the businesses of American digital multinationals around the world. The first is the law that forces ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to sell its US subsidiary to a non-Chinese company before January 19, 2025. If it does not do so, the social network will be banned in the country. The second is the Department of Justice’s request to break up Google after its monopoly conviction.
The curious thing about both cases is that Trump had great weight in their origins, despite the fact that he now opposes them head-on. It was he who began the hunt for TikTok during his first term for its alleged links with Chinese intelligence and who forced the social network to sign an agreement with Oracle (founded by his friend Larry Ellison) to store its data in the US.
Biden took advantage of that momentum to continue tightening the fence. In April he managed to pass a law that gave ByteDance 270 days to sell TikTok to the US. A good part of the Republican representatives supported it, despite the fact that Trump was already positioning himself against the measure.
Something very similar happens in the case of Google. It was the Trump Administration that launched the monopoly lawsuit against Google in the online search sector, which ended with its conviction this past summer. Now the Biden Administration’s Justice Department has asked judges to force Google to sell its Chrome browser to reduce its ability to control this market, as well as potentially Android. An option that Trump also opposes.
Ban TikTok due to Chinese interference
The law that could end the ban on TikTok in the US has a national security motivation. The rule seeks to prevent Americans’ data and the ability of the application to influence its citizens from being in the power of an “adversary foreign nation,” it says, referring to China.
The US Government has never provided evidence of these extremes. However, the ability of the Chinese social network to manipulate public opinion and democratic processes has seen one of its greatest milestones recently in Romania, where Justice has annulled the first round of the elections after accusations of interference through TikTok.
ByteDance and TikTok USA appealed the law to the Court of Appeals, which last Friday rejected the appeal and dealt a fatal blow to the social network. If ByteDance does not sell before January 19, the application will no longer be available in the application stores and its 170 million users in the country, as well as the thousands of content creators who generate income through the app, will not be able to access it.
ByteDance had already stated before the resolution that a sale process of TikTok USA under the terms established by the law would be “commercially and technologically impossible.” With less than six weeks until its total blockade in the country, the company has now asked the magistrates to paralyze the case so that the Supreme Court can review it. A delay that could be crucial for the future of the social network, since January 19 is just one day before Trump’s inauguration.
“I will save TikTok,” the Republican promised during the election campaign, alleging that its ban in the US would prevent “competition” with Facebook, whom he called “the enemy of the people.” TikTok has openly argued that stalling the law would give the incoming administration a chance to intervene. “It could dismiss both the imminent harm and the need for a Supreme Court review,” he said.
“The Supreme Court has a consistent record protecting Americans’ right to freedom of expression, and we hope they maintain it on this important constitutional issue,” sources from the social network continue: “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and promoted based on the basis of inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in the outright censorship of the American people.”
The sale of Chrome and Android
Although the law that puts TikTok in the US between sale or ban has already been ratified by the US Congress and the Court of Appeals, the situation with Google is different. The multinational was convicted of maintaining an illegal monopoly on online searches this past summer and now the court has to decide how to break that situation. The Biden administration has asked to be forced to sell Chrome and potentially Android, but that request has yet to be endorsed by judges and, in addition, the multinational has appealed.
The case is further from seeing its end than that of TikTok and Trump has also positioned himself against separating Google into several companies. He claims that it would go against the interests of the country. “If you do that, are you going to destroy the company? “What you can do without breaking it up is make sure that its position in the market is fairer,” he said in October.
His future vice president, on the other hand, argued in the completely opposite direction at the beginning of the year. “I think Google should break up. I think it’s too big, too powerful. We will see how things are in 2025,” said JD Vance.
A Justice Department led by Trump could withdraw the Chrome petition, or make it easier for Google to continue operating as before despite an unfavorable court ruling. If the court approves the current Chrome petition, it would be the first time a corporation has been forced to separate since 1982, when AT&T had to spin off its local telephone subsidiaries to allow greater competition in the sector.
Google, for its part, has criticized the Biden administration’s action, arguing that it would “harm American consumers, small businesses, and technological innovation.” According to the multinationalmeasures, such as the forced sale of Chrome and Android, and sharing sensitive data, would affect the privacy, security and quality of its products, while hindering leadership in artificial intelligence.
With these cases, Trump will not only manage his country’s reaction to the foreign interference of TikTok or the Google monopoly, but he could open the door for third countries to emulate his steps if he applies a heavy hand with technology. American social networks are banned in Russia and China, but blocs like the EU have been increasingly strict on competition issues or when Europeans send data to the US.
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