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By Tim Wu
Mr. Wu is a professor of Columbia and a contributing opinion writer. It served in the National Economic Council as a special assistant of the President of Competition and Technology Policy from 2021 to 2023.
Until last week, the controversy about Tiktok, the application of the exchange of videos belonging to the Chinese, implied national security and censorship issues. But on January 20, when President Trump signed a decree taking a break from the prohibition of the federal application, the importance of Tiktok’s controversy changed. Now it is also a story about how Trump’s management is deciding to manage the economy.
It seems that Trump will verify to negotiate an agreement with Tiktok to locate an American spouse to win part of the business. (The prohibition prohibits the distribution of the application in the United States as long as it remains controlled through a Chinese company). Mr. Trump said that, as he understands, the prohibition “gives the President the right to conclude an agreement” and that he wants “a war of auction. “
Regarding Tiktok, this means that the president will likely choose a new owner for the app from his circle of wealthy friends and acquaintances. (Reports last weekend recommend that it be for software company Oracle, whose chief executive is Larry Ellison, and several other investors to use operations around the world. And whether the agreement complies, the law remains open questions.
But more important than the deal itself is the approach. It hints at a new era in economic policy for the United States that is centered on a paramount leader (Mr. Trump) actively picking winners and losers. To be sure, the federal government, usually by way of Congress, has previously practiced industrial policy. But the centralization of policy in the president would be something different: more like a command economy, which in the United States might be called command capitalism.
The fact that Mr. Trump likes to be in the rate and conclusive agreements by themselves is nothing new. Actually, he never sought paintings in government restrictions. But during his first term as president, his instincts were frustrated through a variety of factors, adding members of the non -aligned personnel about his new vision of the Republican party, as well as the institutional resistance to the government.
But this time, things are different. During the 8 years which followed the last time that Mr. Trump assumed the presidency, a vast network of ideologically sympathetic and applicants for the head of the branch evolved around him, and he entered into His moment term with more targeted plans to triumph over institutional resistance. In this context, his control of Tiktok suggests that his technique “picking winners” of the economy can pass from the fringe to the center, representing a primary rupture of republican orthodoxy – indeed, of American capitalism more generally.
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