The recent exposure that China managed to infiltrate US wireless communication networks without being detected for an extended period once again highlights the mistake made by President-elect Donald Trump in attempting to impede the enactment of the 2024 law. This law, scheduled to be enforced on January 19, aims to prohibit the social media app TikTok unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells it to owners that are not of Chinese origin.

Trump has requested that the implementation of the law be postponed by the Supreme Court so that he can obstruct it further upon assuming office on January 20. If the justices do not comply, Trump’s legal team may seek alternative methods to obstruct the ban.

But he’s wrong, no matter how many billions of views of Trump-themed content the app has hosted in the past — because Beijing can’t be trusted.

That telecom-hack news shows what China will do even knowing it’ll eventually be found out: It believes any US response will be a joke.  

TikTok operates as a form of soft-power intelligence strategy, where hundreds of millions of American users willingly provide personal data to Beijing, without the need for any hacking tactics.

Sure, ByteDance shouts again and again that its Chinese employees can’t access US user data, but that’s already been proven untrue; workers were using that data to track journalists. 

Indeed, with one of TikTok’s board seats filled by a political commissar, it’s clear all user data is there for Chinese Communist Party perusal. 

ByteDance itself openly collaborates with China’s military and intelligence agencies, running an AI academy explicitly for military purposes.  

Worse, this intel op runs both ways. 

Beijing isn’t just harvesting data on us, it’s using a corporate cats-paw to brainwash Americans via TikTok’s insanely addictive algorithm. 

Trump is literally the most famous person in the world — he doesn’t need TikTok because he can find other platforms.

Congress passed the TikTok ban with massively bipartisan agreement; it’s beyond necessary. 

So for the good of the country, Trump needs to cool down the “warm spot” he feels for TikTok and side with those who see the clear and present danger the app and the government behind it present.