Biden administration calls for suspension of WeChat ban

The administration of Joe Biden asked a judge on Thursday to suspend the examination of a procedure initiated by his predecessor to ban the Chinese platform WeChat, after having done the same the day before in a case concerning the TikTok application.

Read also: In the United States, the fate of WeChat in suspense

The Ministry of Commerce, which deals with these cases, says it needs additional time to study certain decisions taken under the leadership of Donald Trump.

In the case of WeChat,

the ban of this platform belonging to Tencent, it is explained in a document in the file managed by a California appeals court.

the restrictions requested by Donald Trump , he added.

Espionage charges

The former White House tenant accused WeChat, a platform omnipresent in the lives of Chinese people via its messaging, remote payments or reservations services, and TikTok, an application of short videos particularly popular among young people, to collect confidential data, before sharing it with Beijing.

The two companies reject these accusations of espionage.

Legal remedies have prevented the prohibitions provided for by the decrees from coming into force, and the government's appeal procedures have not been successful at this stage.

In its request filed this Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce emphasizes that after its examination of the case, it could ask to restrict the legal action or completely withdraw the appeal against the decision taken by a judge at first instance to suspend the ban. requested by the Trump administration.

The latter also demanded that the Chinese group ByteDance sell the American operations of TikTok to the groups Oracle and Walmart.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington has decided a priori not to force this transaction, even if discussions are still ongoing.