Trump Rescuing Tik-Tok; Can the USA be Bothered to Save Itself?

Trump Calls Aid to Ukraine a National “Betrayal”

Hi All—This piece is a commentary on Trump’s first day and US foreign/strategic policy. In particular the issues I’ve been writing about—Ukraine and China. Because these are quite key news issues and we are going through an unprecedented time—will keep this piece open for everyone.

My own feeling is that the order Trump has given about Tik-Tok is the more ominous about the future of US democracy and I explain more below. However, I will start with Ukraine in Trump’s inaugural, which is not getting the coverage that it deserves and was arguably more ominous than expected.

Trump Calls Aid to Ukraine a National “Betrayal”

Trump’s inaugural speech was ominous for Ukraine—in a way people have not yet seemed to grasp. While Trump did not mention Ukraine by name, he made a pointed attack on the Biden Administration’s policy of providing equipment and financial aid to Ukraine—actually twice (people have missed the second one). The first case was pretty obvious, here is the quote (and here is a link to the whole address).

We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders or, more importantly, its own people.

That has to be Ukraine as there is no other country that Biden has supported—even if the unlimited line is a lie and profoundly stupid. To reinforce this point, Trump actually referred to this a few lines later when he specifically claimed that his election was a repudiation of policies such as Biden’s support for Ukraine—which he went further and called a “betrayal”. It was striking:

My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and, indeed, their freedom.

Here is a screenshot of the speech so you can see the list of betrayals and his open repudiation of them. Its undeniable. The two key statements have boxes around them

And guess what—there is no new aid for Ukraine about to be authorized. So, US aid, for now is over. Maybe, if Ukraine bends its will completely to Trump there will be more aid as a way to compel them to agree to hand over territory to Putin. But as of now, the USA is no longer a supporter of Ukraine and Trump’s speech was a repudiation of the Biden Administration for having supported Ukraine in the first place.

To be frank—it was worse than expected.

Trump Rescuing Tik-Tok; Can the USA be Bothered to Save Itself?

Well, that did not take long.

Unilaterally declaring a halt to the Tik-Tok ban might not have been the first order that Trump signed, but it was in the first batch. He has, tbh, been laying the groundwork for days before he was sworn in.

He Could Not Even Wait Until The Inauguration

This move ir arguably the defining step of the new administration, easily Trump’s most striking use/misuse of presidential power, and will ultimately be the great test case about whether the USA actually can or even wants to save itself.

Yes there were other orders and scandals—but they were not illegal. For instance, Trump pardoned 1500 of the Jan 6th rioters, but that is actually not illegal. Biden pre-emptively pardoning all his family members just a few minutes before showed how personalized and frankly corrupt the pardon system had become. I would change the pardon powers as presently deployed—but what the presidents are doing in entirely within their power. Even Trump’s calls for national expansion are actually not unusual in US history (we have just not had them for more than a century) and as a just elected commander in chief if he wants to make the case for the US to expand, he has that authority. Even his rebuke of Biden’s support for Ukraine (see above) was entirely within his power. He can as President not support the Ukrainian struggle for freedom if he does not want to.

But the presidential overturning the Tik-Tok Ban represents a huge challenge to the whole idea that the US is not a de-facto authoritarian despotism now. Moreover, the way it has come about in the last few days calls into question the whole idea of who has influence in the US system.

First of all—the law banning Tik-Tok has reached hallowed ground in the USA in legal terms. It was declared legal by the Supreme Court in a 9-0, unanimous decision. Btw if you want to read the whole ruling—here it is.

So it was as enshrined in US law as a law can be. Moreover, it actually showed that some Republicans in Congress were willing to at least tentatively break with Trump.

Moreover, the law is based on the idea that that Tik-Tok is a threat to national security, as it allows massive intelligence gathering by the Chinese state—which is the ultimate controller all Chinese high-tech companies.

However legality and national security meant nothing to Trump. He has basically said that he can, through presidential order, suspend the law at his own discretion for 75 days. And he can do this by protecting companies that should be fined massive amounts for breaking the law—even if he almost certainly does not have that power legally.

However we will soon see if he has that power de facto. For this is not the President operating above the law, it is the President having the ability to rewrite the law at his will.

Now there are a few test cases here whether the US system can endure.

1. Will anyone challenge this executive order soon? In the past there would almost immediately have been a court case where some interested party questioned the legality of Trump’s order. If we don’t see one in the next few days—the spirit of the US to resist authoritarianism is very much dead.

2. Will all the companies concerned fall in line? What is interesting is that so far, corporate America has split on this. Some companies, such as Oracle, have instantly jumped back into supporting Tik-Tok. They are gambling that Trump’s authoritarian move will spare them from the fines that they are now legally liable to pay. Otoh, Apple and Google are still holding back. If they jump in too—that’s it. We have obedience to authoritarianism over obedience to the law.

Btw, there is also the test of the Foreign emoluments clause (think foreign bribery) that needs to be had now. Trump’s memecoin, which has made him tens of billions of dollars in the last few days, is the perfect vehicle for foreign states to pay him directly. It is unaccountable and the perfect criminal enterprise, and was opened up just before Trump saved Tik Tok.

So there we have it. The Ukraine position is grotesque and I believe a mistake of enormous proportions—but it is not illegal. Trump protecting Chinese spying in the US in contravention of a law that had received unanimous Supreme Court support challenges the very foundations of the US system.

The only question now is whether Americans wish to save themselves.