US has signalled that he is considering taking action against more Chinese companies, including Alibaba, one day after he ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok's operations in the US within 90 days.
Asked on Saturday whether US was contemplating punitive action against more Chinese companies, such as the ecommerce giant Alibaba, Mr Trump replied: "We're looking at other things, yes we are."
Mr Trump took dual actions against the Chinese technology industry on Friday. In addition to the ByteDance order, the US president ended a waiver that had allowed some US companies to continue selling goods to Huawei, the Chinese telecoms equipment firm that the US believes spies for Beijing.
In his TikTok order, issued on Friday evening, Mr Trump said there was "credible evidence" that ByteDance might take action to hurt US security.
His move to order ByteDance to divest TikTok within 90 days followed a recommendation from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), a government panel that vets foreign acquisitions of US companies.
The order came one week after he issued a separate directive banning US companies from dealing with TikTok unless ByteDance sold the app to an American group within 45 days. The latest move goes further by providing a hard deadline for ByteDance to sell its TikTok operations in the US.
Microsoft has been in talks to buy the app. A senior US official said the new order would add to the pressure on ByteDance to sell TikTok because the value of the asset would fall as the 90-day deadline approached.
The White House last week took aim at Tencent, a high-profile Chinese technology company, by giving US companies 45 days to stop dealing with WeChat, the ubiquitous messaging app owned by Tencent. That move spurred speculation that he was willing to take action against big Chinese companies that produce popular goods and services in their home market.
US has signalled that he is considering taking action against more Chinese companies, including Alibaba, one day after he ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok's operations in the US within 90 days.
