Icons for the smartphone apps TikTok and WeChat are seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Aug 7, 2020.  (MARKMSCHIEFELBEIN/AP)

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration will ban WeChat and video-sharing app TikTok from US app stores starting Sunday night, a move that will block Americans from downloading the Chinese-owned platforms.

Commerce officials said the ban on new US downloads of TikTok could be still rescinded by President Donald Trump before it takes effect late Sunday as TikTok owner ByteDance races to clinch an agreement over the fate of its US operations.

The bans, announced on Friday, affect only new downloads and updates and are less sweeping than expected, particularly for TikTok, giving its parent group ByteDance some breathing space to clinch an agreement over the fate of its US operations.

WeChat, an all-in-one messaging, social media and electronic payment app, faces more severe restrictions from Sunday. Existing TikTok users, on the other hand, will see little change until Nov 12 when a ban on some technical transactions will kick in, affecting its functionality.

“The basic TikTok will stay intact until Nov 12,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Network.

The ban on new US downloads of the widely popular app could still be rescinded by President Donald Trump before it takes effect if ByteDance seals a deal with Oracle that addresses concerns about the security of its users’ data.

ByteDance has been talks with Oracle Corp and others to create a new company, TikTok Global, that aims to address US concerns about the security of its users’ data. ByteDance still needs Trump’s approval to stave off a US ban.

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The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to purge Chinese apps from US digital networks amid escalating tensions with Beijing.

The ban on WeChat, used by over 1 billion people worldwide, bars the transfer of funds or processing of payments to or from people in the United States through it. Users could also start to experience a slower service from Sunday night.

The Commerce Department order bars Apple Inc’s app store, Alphabet Inc’s Google Play and others from offering the apps on any platform “that can be reached from within the United States,” a senior Commerce official told Reuters.

The order will not bar transactions with WeChat-owner Tencent Holdings’ other businesses, including its online gaming operations, and will not prohibit Apple, Google or others from offering TikTok or WeChat apps anywhere outside the United States

While the bans are less dramatic than some had originally feared, commerce officials said additional transactions could be added at a later date.

Oracle shares were down 0.3 percent after initially dropping 1.6 percent in pre-market trading.

The order does not ban US companies from doing businesses on WeChat outside the United States, which will be welcome news to US firms like Walmart and Starbucks that use WeChat’s embedded mini-app programs to facilitate transactions and engage consumers in China, officials said.

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The order will not bar transactions with WeChat-owner Tencent Holdings’ other businesses, including its online gaming operations, and will not prohibit Apple, Google or others from offering TikTok or WeChat apps anywhere outside the United States.

The bans are in response to a pair of executive orders issued by Trump on August 6 that gave the Commerce Department 45 days to determine what transactions to block from the apps he deemed pose a national security threat. That deadline expires on Sunday.

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Commerce Department officials said they were taking the extraordinary step because of the risks the apps’ data collection poses. China and the companies have denied US user data is collected for spying.

Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Popular app

TikTok has 100 million users in the United States and is especially popular among younger Americans.

The Commerce Department will not seek to compel people in the United States to remove the apps or stop using them but will not allow updates or new downloads

WeChat has had an average of 19 million daily active users in the United States, analytics firms Apptopia said in early August. It is popular among Chinese students, ex-pats and some Americans who have personal or business relationships in China.

The Commerce Department will not seek to compel people in the United States to remove the apps or stop using them. “We are aiming at a top corporate level. We’re not going to go out after the individual users,” one Commerce official said.

Over time, officials said, the lack of updates will degrade the apps usability.

“The expectation is that people will find alternative ways to do these actions,” a senior official said. “We expect the market to act and there will be more secure apps that will fill in these gaps that Americans can trust and that the United States government won’t have to take similar actions against.”

Commerce is also barring additional technical transactions with WeChat starting Sunday that will significantly reduce the usability and functionality of the app in the United States.

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The order bars data hosting within the United States for WeChat, content delivery services and networks that can increase functionality and internet transit or peering services.

“What immediately is going to happen is users are going to experience a lag or lack of functionality,” a senior Commerce official said of WeChat users. “It may still be usable but it is not going to be as functional as it was.” There may be sporadic outages as well, the official said.

Commerce will bar the same set of technical transactions for TikTok, but that will not take effect until Nov 12.

Commerce will not penalize people who use TikTok or WeChat in the United States.

The order does not bar data storage within the United States for WeChat or TikTok.

Some Americans may find workarounds. There is nothing that would bar an American from traveling to a foreign country and downloading either app, or potentially using a virtual private network and a desktop client, officials conceded.