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The US political landscape is again under a tense atmosphere as people count down the days before a critical change in government. Before that happens, however, the current administration under President Donald Trump seems to be making haste to implement orders and make new rules that have been in the making for months. The latest in that list is an executive order that finally does what Trump has long threatened to do and ban transactions with certain Chinese apps, including those used for money transfers like WeChat Pay.

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Donald Trump signed a Presidential Executive Order last week to ban TikTok from operating in the USA. On Sunday night, Judge Carl Nichols of the US District Court for DC issued an injunction on the matter. With this injunction in place, TikTok is not banned from your phone or any app store for several reasons. One of these reasons was: Donald Trump didn't have the authority to ban this app in the first place.

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There might be a small reprieve for embattled Chinese social media companies that would have been removed from the US market this month. Although there's still some confusion over the exact fate that awaits TikTok and its deal with Oracle and Walmart, there is less ambiguity with what will happen with WeChat. A US judge ruled that the US Commerce Department cannot order Google or Apple to remove the instant messaging app from their app stores but this victory for owner Tencent is by no means final.

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The Trump government will force the removal of TikTok and WeChat from app stores in the US as of this weekend, unless a deal divorcing the popular services from the Chinese ownership is finalized. It's the latest in a series of high-profile escalations done, the US Department of Commerce insisted today, to stop "malicious collection of American citizens' personal data," though critics have accused the policies of being the result of xenophobia and political maneuvering.

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On August 6, 2020, Donald Trump signed a presidential executive order banning U.S. "transactions" with WeChat with an execution countdown of 45 days. Apple is the USA-based company that sells the iPhone. It is possible that a ban on WeChat dealings with America-based companies could result in an iPhone that cannot use the WeChat app worldwide. This could be a disaster for Apple.

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