For the time being, Donald Trump doesn’t know what to do with TikTok’s counter proposal of making Oracle its “business partner” or “trusted tech partner”. As a trusted tech partner, Oracle will manage TikTok’s U.S. user data. As a business partner, Oracle will own a minority stake that will be less than 20% of the new global TikTok.

It was a brilliant strategy to maintain ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok but at the same time solve the problem related to user security. Trump is expected to decide very soon. If the U.S. president insisted that Oracle must own a majority stake or the entire TikTok U.S. business, then it’s as clear as crystal that it was never about national security, but a daylight robbery of the Chinese’s algorithm.

If Trump approves the proposal, it will open the floodgate to other foreign companies to copy the same business model. On the other hand, if the TikTok-Oracle partnership is disallowed, the American company will lose the opportunity to own a stake in the hugely popular social video app that has 100-million American “Generation-Z” users. TikTok’s owner – ByteDance – is ready to shut down, temporarily.

But before Trump makes his decision, ByteDance has thrown a carrot for the president. China-based ByteDance plans to do an IPO (initial public offering) of global TikTok on a U.S. stock exchange. Not only it will address ownership concerns, but there will be a new U.S. board of directors for American operations, not to mention the jobs it will create for Americans.

“ByteDance will not give away its source code to any U.S. buyer, but TikTok’s technology team in the US can develop a new algorithm,” – says a source. Sources told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) – “The car can be sold, but not the engine.” Even if ByteDance wants tosell TikTok’s algorithm, it can’t due to direct involvement of Beijing.

With the direct intervention from Beijing, sources said China prefers to see TikTok shut down in the United States than to see its secret recipe falls into the hands of the Americans. Indeed, the engine or the algorithm is the reason why Microsoft, Oracle, WalMart, Twitter, Netflix and even Triller, a rival app, wanted to buy TikTok in the first place.

On Wednesday, Trump has backed off from his initial bizarre demand for “key money” for allowing the transaction. He complained that his lawyers told him it was illegal. At the same time, the president expressed his displeasure over the idea that the TikTok-Oracle partnership will see the Beijing-based ByteDance would retain a majority stake in TikTok.

In order not to look weak, the Trump administration has decided to block downloads of TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores starting Sunday night (September 20th). The U.S. Commerce Department also announced that there will not be additional technical transactions for TikTok until November 12 to give time to both sides to strike a deal. Approvals from both Washington and Beijing are needed.

The order from the Trump administration, however, will not ban U.S. companies from doing businesses on WeChat outside the United States. Obviously, the move is to protect U.S. companies operating in China such as Walmart and Starbucks. The order also will not prohibit Apple or Google from offering TikTok or WeChat apps outside the United States.

Perhaps someone should advise the POTUS that every teenager knows how to use a VPN (virtual private network) to bypass the download ban. They could always use a VPN and pretend they are in Canada or other parts of the world to download WeChat or TikTok. Amusingly, “existing users” will not be forced to remove the apps or stop using them.

In the same breath, the U.S. government will not penalize people who use TikTok or WeChat in the United States. The fact that current users are not stopped from using TikTok suggests that Trump was careful not to offend 100-million American teenagers. Interestingly, the 2020 Presidential Election will be over by November 12. The ban could be lifted thereafter, either by Trump himself or President Biden.

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