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By David Shepardson and Karen Freifeld
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Wednesday withdrew a series of executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok, and ordered a Commerce Department review of security concerns posed by those apps.
The administration of former President Donald Trump had attempted to block new users from downloading the apps and ban other technical transactions that Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat both said would effectively block the apps’ use in the United States. The courts blocked those orders, which never took effect.
A separate U.S. national security review of TikTok launched in late 2019 remains ongoing, a White House official said, declining to offer any details. The White House remains very concerned about the data risks of TikTok users, another administration official told reporters.
Biden’s new executive order revokes the WeChat and TikTok orders issued in August, along with another in January that targeted eight other communications and financial technology software applications.
The January order directed officials to ban transactions with eight Chinese apps including Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s QQ Wallet and WeChat pay.
The Trump administration contended that WeChat and TikTok posed national security concerns with the threat that the sensitive personal data of U.S. users could be collected by China’s government.
Both TikTok, which has over 100 million…
