The order follows a similar ban Trump began pursuing in August, when he prohibited transactions with the short-form video app TikTok and the social networking app WeChat, calling them national security threats. Federal courts so far have blocked those bans from taking effect as they hear lawsuits from the apps’ supporters.
The order, issued Tuesday evening, refers to the apps and others as security threats, saying that they “automatically capture vast swaths of information from millions of users in the United States, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information, which would allow [China] and [the Chinese Communist Party] access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”
The order does not detail the types of transactions that will be banned. Instead, it instructs the Commerce Department to define in coming weeks the specific transactions.
Legal experts have previously said that the transaction bans could include barring downloads of the apps from the Apple and Google app stores or forbidding all financial transactions.
Alipay and WeChat Pay are mobile payment apps accepted by some U.S. retailers, largely to cater to Chinese tourists and visitors. Their corporate owners, Ant Group and Tencent, respectively, did not offer any immediate comment on the order.
The other apps included in the order are CamScanner, an app that turns a mobile phone into a document scanner, and QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate and WPS Office.
CamScanner had 4.4 million downloads in the Apple and Google app stores last year in the United States, according to analytics provider Sensor Tower. Alipay had 207,000 downloads.
The targeting of Alipay marks another headache for Ant Group’s controlling shareholder, Jack Ma, the Chinese tech entrepreneur who has recently clashed with Chinese authorities.
