I've argued for and supported a ban or forced sale of TikTok since 2018. The argument I made 6 years ago was that if we do not act now, looking at the growth curve, the service will become so popular that lawmakers will find themselves in an impossible position and a ban will never happen

Unfortunately that is exactly what has now happened and now a horrible precedent exists. To any foreign government out there the message is that you are allowed to enter US markets under any pretense, with zero reciprocity for US companies, and as long as you are popular and influential enough the US government and population will go out of its way to facilitate your access

If we are going to go to such extraordinary lengths for a foreign company and government Trump must make a demand of absolute reciprocity. Meta, X, Google, Snapchat, and all other US based technology companies must be allowed total market access in China immediately with zero control by the Chinese Government

Now when the Chinese government inevitably laughs at this demand, ask yourself why. They correctly see Meta, X, Facebook, and Google as instruments of US soft power and as cultural contamination of their civic ideal which undermines their hold on power

We however seem to naively believe we're immune from the same influence and have waited so long to act now that we face terrible choices. The one we've made inevitably means we will have a natural experiment now of what it means to allow a government which actively seeks to undermine our civic institutions with the most powerful known technological tool to do so