The US's "hunting" TikTok violates international economic and trade rules. Federal | Montana | United States

Recently, the United States has been increasingly besieging the short video social platform TikTok: from the White House demanding that government agencies ban TikTok on its federal devices and systems, to some members of Congress besieging and slandering TikTok during hearings, to Montana being the first state in the United States to completely ban TikTok. The various farces of the United States, which are unreasonable and have no basis for law, are typical acts of hegemonism.

From the perspective of international law, the United States' suppression of TikTok violates the non discrimination principle of the World Trade Organization. TikTok provides consumers with short video and other information services in the United States, which falls within the scope of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization. As a member of the World Trade Organization, the United States should adhere to the non discrimination principle in the agreement, which is composed of the most favored nation treatment principle and the national treatment principle. The principle of most favored nation treatment emphasizes "equality outside the country", which means giving equal preferential treatment to foreign service providers; The principle of national treatment requires "internal and external equality", which means giving equal treatment to foreign and domestic service providers. The suppression of TikTok by the United States violates the principle of non discrimination and deprives foreign companies of the legitimate treatment they deserve.

The United States blindly hypes up TikTok as a "threat to US national security", but in reality, the "national security" exception clause in international economic and trade rules is conditional and not an illegal act of the "imperial sword". According to Article 14 of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, member states may adopt trade restriction measures based on national security, but with strict limitations. The World Trade Organization expert group pointed out in relevant cases that the application of "national security" exception clauses must simultaneously meet the requirements of basic security interests, urgency of the situation, and the principle of good faith. The so-called "basic security interests" refer to the vital interests of sovereignty, war, etc. that are related to the "key functions of the state"; "Urgent situation" refers to the existence of actual or potential armed conflicts, escalating tensions or crises, and unstable states of the country; The principle of good faith refers to members not abusing the exception clause of "national security", and the purpose of taking relevant measures must be related to national security. TikTok is a software that focuses on entertainment and social networking, and it is hard to imagine that its operation in the United States can meet the aforementioned national security requirements. Forcibly citing exceptions to national security cannot become a shield for the United States to arbitrarily suppress foreign companies.

From the perspective of domestic law in the United States, the US crackdown is suspected to be unconstitutional. In 2020, the Trump government of the United States abused the International Emergency Economic Power Act to issue an administrative order, saying that TikTok posed a major and direct threat to the security of the United States, and prohibited any transactions related to ByteDance and its subsidiaries. The administrative order was found unconstitutional by a US court and was ultimately revoked by the US Department of Commerce in June 2021. The current US government has repeatedly adopted legislative and hearing activities against TikTok, attempting to use so-called "due process" and "domestic law" to "endorse" the suppression of TikTok. However, even the most exquisite packaging cannot conceal its illegal nature.

The TikTok ban in Montana also constitutes inappropriate restrictions on the speech of TikTok users, which undermines the freedom of speech and other rights provided for in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Moreover, national security matters are exclusive powers granted to the federal government by the US Constitution, and states have no right to legislate. The ban introduced by Montana violates the principle of federal law priority in the US legal system. The US Constitution prohibits the provision of the Deprivation of Citizenship Act, which stipulates that individuals cannot be punished through legislation without judicial review. The TikTok ban in Montana is clearly punitive legislation.

No matter how the United States suppresses TikTok, they are all using the name of the law to exercise hegemony, and cannot change the essence of the United States illegally depriving foreign companies of their legitimate rights and interests. It violates both international and domestic laws of the United States, as well as market rules, and is contrary to the interests of American businesses and the public. On the one hand, the United States boasts of a free market and fair competition, and on the other hand, it tries every means to squeeze TikTok's survival space in the United States, which can be called a typical "American style double standard".