The White House is cracking down on Chinese finance apps, with President Trump signing an executive order banning U.S. transactions with all the leading Chinese payment applications.

The order is the latest move in the prolonged trade dispute between China and the U.S.

National Security Powers Put Pressure on Chinese Technology Companies

During his time in office, President Trump has accused Chinese technology companies of actions ranging from the theft of U.S. intellectual property to anti-competitive practices. This latest executive order uses national security as a basis to put pressure on Chinese firms.

The ban will affect payments processed by Ant Group’s AliPay service, Tencent Holdings QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay, CamScanner, SHAREit, Vmate, and WPS Office.

The order is directed at the Commerce Department, which will set the specifics of the payments and specific transactions that will be banned within 45 days. It will be up to the next administration to determine whether the bans are pushed through into law.

There could still be legal challenges for the executive order. Trump faced legal backlash when he attempted to force the sale of TikTok last year, a social media application owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd.

Even if there are no viable legal challenges, President-elect Joe Biden could simply choose to revoke Trump’s executive order when he takes office later this month.

How Does the Order Protect National Security?

President Trump sees the listed Chinese payment applications as threats because they collect financial data from users based in the United States. In addition to financial data, the applications that process payments can also collect text messages, listen in on calls, and access photos and other media stored on devices

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said in a statement regarding the order that “The Chinese government requires that all commercial companies, big and small, support the Chinese Communist Party’s political objectives.”

This statement hints that administration insiders are concerned that Chinese applications could be used as backdoors to gain intelligence that could compromise U.S. citizens and interests.

More than six million combined downloads from the targeted apps were reported in 2020, supporting the President’s belief that users could be targets of Chinese data harvesting and misuse.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross issued a statement this week indicating that he has advised his department to proceed under the assumption that the order will be upheld by the new administration