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Not a single person seem to think that it is odd that we can simply order a foreign company to sell their business to an American company.

bigpumpkin 6y ago
You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until they break out the "Entities List".
- moreorless 6y ago
  I find the whole Huawei situation to be quite riveting.
halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
Is it any more odd than China strong-arming the NBA, lest they are barred from operating there? If TikTok wants the American/European market and they’d sell the company in order to so, that’s just the reality of working within the current geopolitical landscape.
- moreorless 6y ago
  They do it, so we should too. Got it.
  - brandonmenc 6y ago
    Yes. Exactly. Welcome to the real world.
    - moreorless 6y ago
      Then it is high time we get off our high horse.
- xster 6y ago
  Wouldn't the logical equivalency be for China to strong-arm the NBA to sell ownership to a Chinese company if they want the NBA to continue to be watched by Chinese audience?
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    > Wouldn't the logical equivalency be for China to strong-arm the NBA to sell ownership to a Chinese company if they want the NBA to continue to be watched by Chinese audience? Indeed. The real equivalent would be when China prohibited AWS from operating datacenters in China, forcing them to instead operate out of Chinese-owned datacenters.
    - xster 6y ago
      Well no, it's not that complicated. To make it as illustrative as possible, your example is like the child of an American goes to work in China and China says, if you want to work, you need to use my shovel. My example is like the child of a Chinese goes to work in America and America says you need to be adopted.
      - dodobirdlord 6y ago
        Not really. AWS would like to run a datacenter business in China the way they do everywhere else in the world, but that happens to be illegal in China. Only Chinese companies are permitted to run datacenters. This seems like an exact parallel of the US deciding that social media companies that want to operate in the US have to be US companies.
        xster 6y ago
        Oh ya, that would be. Though the OP and this whole thread is about forcing a sale of the company's ownership, not whose data center it's running on. So again, the equivalent would have been for China to force Amazon to sell it's China equities, not share part of it's China assets to a Chinese company.
markus_zhang 6y ago
Well that's why you have a bigger stick. It's more expensive and you need to pay the cost somehow.
morley 6y ago
Is it that odd? Some countries force you to partner with a local firm to enter their market. A great many use import taxes to give their home businesses a leg up in the industry. It's not fair, but it's not odd either.
ericmay 6y ago
Well, probably because that's not what is happening. The US has the right to ban companies from the country (as do other countries). What the US is saying is that the parent company (Bytedance) bust divest Tik Tok or they'll lose access to the US market. Microsoft is interested in it, but it could be a different company buying it. This is different than "you must sell this company to this other company" because the US can't force a foreign entity to do that (as long as that foreign government doesn't also cooperate due to politics of soft power reasons). In the case of China, Bytedance can absolutely refuse to sell Tik Tok, it'll just get banned from operating in the United States. Surely they'd rather take a few billion dollars instead, which is why they are going to sell it. Actions like this or ones that are similar in spirit happen quite often. And naturally if you look at China, well, frankly, they are getting a taste of their own medicine in some sense.
- moreorless 6y ago
  According to this Time's article, President Trump is ordering them to sell it. https://time.com/5874408/trump-order-bytedance-sell-tiktok-us/ https://time.com/5874408/trump-order-bytedance-sell-tiktok-u...
- glglwty 6y ago
  Is there any precedence where the executive branch just ban a foreign company without citing the violation of law and going through court or WTO, in the last century?
  - ericmay 6y ago
    Yep -> "That order marked the sixth time a U.S. president has either blocked a deal or ordered a corporate selloff since Congress authorized the power to intervene in 1988." WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-order-demanding-chinas-bytedance-to-divest-tiktok-11596219920?mod=hp_lead_pos1 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-order-demanding-c... I don't know the details of the others, but one that comes to mind (and maybe is mentioned in the article?) is the blocked acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom. -edit- The circumstances around some of these may not be exactly the same, but the derivation of power comes from the same source. Also who cares about the WTO? I don't see the WTO being involved when China forces majority-owned joint ventures or outright bans US companies from operating there. Why would a court be involved either? Bytedance is welcome to sue, I suppose, but Trump (in this case) has the power to issue this order. I guess if we don't like that since it's being used now, we should have Congress vote to take that power away from the current and future presidents. I'm in favor of this move overall. Besides the toxicity of social networking in general, I just don't see a point in letting Chinese technology companies operate in the US unless it's strictly under favorable terms for us. If they don't like it, then I guess maybe they should let US companies operate freely in their country. This will increasingly end up happening and I say good. China will grow tech companies, and the US will force them to divest or not operate in the US once there is significant money at stake until China plays fair. If they don't want to, well, that's just no big deal. We're doing just fine.
topkai22 6y ago
Domestic ownership requirements are common throughout the world. In comparison to many other countries (look at the UAE, at least till last year) the US has traditionally been open to foreign ownership. The thing that is notable is that the US has traditionally advocated for open markets and cross border ownership, but now is jumping on board with tactics it once campaigned against.
nouveaux 6y ago
It is not odd at all when the foreign company is one of the largest espionage threats to United States, which is one of the largest markets in the world. Yes, the US government is mulling over the idea of banning TikTok but that is only one of the problems. The immediate problem is that US companies have seriously assessed the security risk. TikTok and China have a credibility problem in the business world. TikTok shareholders sees the same risk and they want to protect their investment. Not odd or surprising.
- xster 6y ago
  > when the foreign company is one of the largest espionage threats to United States Are you referring to something specific or this is a Bush doctrine sort of thing?
supergirl 6y ago
business as usual. US bullying others for economic gain. sometimes with war, sometimes with sanctions. for now they threaten to ban tiktok in the US but I'm sure it wouldn't stop at that. same as with huawei. they will go door to door to bully other countries to ban tiktok as well.
tschwimmer 6y ago
OFAC is a result of political and economic realism. Not many people will do business in Venezuela, Iran and North Korea because (among other good reasons) the governments of these countries have shown a propensity of nationalize foreign firms. Foreign companies are free to not do business with the United States if they feel their company is likely to be expropriated. In practice 300m of the world's richest consumers make the US irresistible. Thus, OFAC is tolerated.

bigpumpkin 6y ago

You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until they break out the "Entities List".

moreorless 6y ago
I find the whole Huawei situation to be quite riveting.

halfmatthalfcat 6y ago

Is it any more odd than China strong-arming the NBA, lest they are barred from operating there? If TikTok wants the American/European market and they’d sell the company in order to so, that’s just the reality of working within the current geopolitical landscape.

moreorless 6y ago
They do it, so we should too. Got it.
- brandonmenc 6y ago
  Yes. Exactly. Welcome to the real world.
  - moreorless 6y ago
    Then it is high time we get off our high horse.
xster 6y ago
Wouldn't the logical equivalency be for China to strong-arm the NBA to sell ownership to a Chinese company if they want the NBA to continue to be watched by Chinese audience?
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  > Wouldn't the logical equivalency be for China to strong-arm the NBA to sell ownership to a Chinese company if they want the NBA to continue to be watched by Chinese audience? Indeed. The real equivalent would be when China prohibited AWS from operating datacenters in China, forcing them to instead operate out of Chinese-owned datacenters.
  - xster 6y ago
    Well no, it's not that complicated. To make it as illustrative as possible, your example is like the child of an American goes to work in China and China says, if you want to work, you need to use my shovel. My example is like the child of a Chinese goes to work in America and America says you need to be adopted.
    - dodobirdlord 6y ago
      Not really. AWS would like to run a datacenter business in China the way they do everywhere else in the world, but that happens to be illegal in China. Only Chinese companies are permitted to run datacenters. This seems like an exact parallel of the US deciding that social media companies that want to operate in the US have to be US companies.
      - xster 6y ago
        Oh ya, that would be. Though the OP and this whole thread is about forcing a sale of the company's ownership, not whose data center it's running on. So again, the equivalent would have been for China to force Amazon to sell it's China equities, not share part of it's China assets to a Chinese company.

markus_zhang 6y ago

Well that's why you have a bigger stick. It's more expensive and you need to pay the cost somehow.

morley 6y ago

Is it that odd? Some countries force you to partner with a local firm to enter their market. A great many use import taxes to give their home businesses a leg up in the industry. It's not fair, but it's not odd either.

ericmay 6y ago

Well, probably because that's not what is happening. The US has the right to ban companies from the country (as do other countries). What the US is saying is that the parent company (Bytedance) bust divest Tik Tok or they'll lose access to the US market. Microsoft is interested in it, but it could be a different company buying it. This is different than "you must sell this company to this other company" because the US can't force a foreign entity to do that (as long as that foreign government doesn't also cooperate due to politics of soft power reasons). In the case of China, Bytedance can absolutely refuse to sell Tik Tok, it'll just get banned from operating in the United States. Surely they'd rather take a few billion dollars instead, which is why they are going to sell it. Actions like this or ones that are similar in spirit happen quite often. And naturally if you look at China, well, frankly, they are getting a taste of their own medicine in some sense.

moreorless 6y ago
According to this Time's article, President Trump is ordering them to sell it. https://time.com/5874408/trump-order-bytedance-sell-tiktok-us/ https://time.com/5874408/trump-order-bytedance-sell-tiktok-u...
glglwty 6y ago
Is there any precedence where the executive branch just ban a foreign company without citing the violation of law and going through court or WTO, in the last century?
- ericmay 6y ago
  Yep -> "That order marked the sixth time a U.S. president has either blocked a deal or ordered a corporate selloff since Congress authorized the power to intervene in 1988." WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-order-demanding-chinas-bytedance-to-divest-tiktok-11596219920?mod=hp_lead_pos1 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-order-demanding-c... I don't know the details of the others, but one that comes to mind (and maybe is mentioned in the article?) is the blocked acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom. -edit- The circumstances around some of these may not be exactly the same, but the derivation of power comes from the same source. Also who cares about the WTO? I don't see the WTO being involved when China forces majority-owned joint ventures or outright bans US companies from operating there. Why would a court be involved either? Bytedance is welcome to sue, I suppose, but Trump (in this case) has the power to issue this order. I guess if we don't like that since it's being used now, we should have Congress vote to take that power away from the current and future presidents. I'm in favor of this move overall. Besides the toxicity of social networking in general, I just don't see a point in letting Chinese technology companies operate in the US unless it's strictly under favorable terms for us. If they don't like it, then I guess maybe they should let US companies operate freely in their country. This will increasingly end up happening and I say good. China will grow tech companies, and the US will force them to divest or not operate in the US once there is significant money at stake until China plays fair. If they don't want to, well, that's just no big deal. We're doing just fine.

topkai22 6y ago

Domestic ownership requirements are common throughout the world. In comparison to many other countries (look at the UAE, at least till last year) the US has traditionally been open to foreign ownership. The thing that is notable is that the US has traditionally advocated for open markets and cross border ownership, but now is jumping on board with tactics it once campaigned against.

nouveaux 6y ago

It is not odd at all when the foreign company is one of the largest espionage threats to United States, which is one of the largest markets in the world. Yes, the US government is mulling over the idea of banning TikTok but that is only one of the problems. The immediate problem is that US companies have seriously assessed the security risk. TikTok and China have a credibility problem in the business world. TikTok shareholders sees the same risk and they want to protect their investment. Not odd or surprising.

xster 6y ago
> when the foreign company is one of the largest espionage threats to United States Are you referring to something specific or this is a Bush doctrine sort of thing?

supergirl 6y ago

business as usual. US bullying others for economic gain. sometimes with war, sometimes with sanctions. for now they threaten to ban tiktok in the US but I'm sure it wouldn't stop at that. same as with huawei. they will go door to door to bully other countries to ban tiktok as well.

tschwimmer 6y ago

OFAC is a result of political and economic realism. Not many people will do business in Venezuela, Iran and North Korea because (among other good reasons) the governments of these countries have shown a propensity of nationalize foreign firms. Foreign companies are free to not do business with the United States if they feel their company is likely to be expropriated. In practice 300m of the world's richest consumers make the US irresistible. Thus, OFAC is tolerated.