The Commerce Department on Friday issued an order banning any transactions on TikTok and WeChat in the U.S., saying the Chinese-owned apps create "unacceptable risks to our national security."
Starting Sunday, TikTok and WeChat will be banned from app stores, as will sending money or processing payments through WeChat. WeChat is largely used for sending money. "For all practical purposes it will be shut down in the U.S., but only in the U.S., as of midnight on Monday," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business News on Friday.
The order seeks to "combat China's malicious collection of American citizens' personal data," according the Commerce Department said in a news release.
The order comes as TikTok's owner, China's ByteDance, has sought to negotiate a partnership with Oracle to comply with a previous executive order that required the company to sell its U.S. assets.
"We continue to believe this is a game of high stakes poker, and this move put sharp teeth into threats by the Trump administration around the TikTok and WeChat bans," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.
This is a developing story.