WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - US President Donald Trump said he could exert pressure on more Chinese companies such as technology giant Alibaba after he moved to ban TikTok.
Asked at a news conference on Saturday (Aug 15) whether there were other particular China-owned companies he was considering a ban, such as Alibaba, Mr Trump replied: "Well, we're looking at other things, yes."
Mr Trump has been piling pressure on Chinese-owned companies, such as by vowing to ban short-video app TikTok from the United States.
It ordered TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance on Friday to divest the US operations of TikTok within 90 days, the latest effort to ramp up pressure over concerns about the safety of the personal data it handles.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump now has a verified account on Triller, the competitor to TikTok, in another sign of the White House's disfavour towards the Chinese video-sharing app.
Triller is one of several TikTok alternatives that have experienced a surge of downloads since Mr Trump signed an executive order on Aug 6 that would prohibit certain transactions with TikTok unless ByteDance divests it.
TikTok is best known for viral dance videos that capture the American teenage zeitgeist, but US officials have expressed concerns that user information could be passed by the Chinese-owned app on to authorities in Beijing.
ByteDance is already in talks to sell the North America, Australia and New Zealand operations of TikTok to Microsoft. But with the company under a cloud, once-obscure competitors are stepping up their efforts to woo TikTok's young userbase.
Mr Trump's Triller account had three short videos and a little more than 3,000 followers late on Saturday.
The Trump campaign and Triller did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr Trump, who has made changing the US-China trade relationship a central theme of his presidency, has been sharply critical of China while also praising its purchases of agriculture products such as soybeans and corn as part of a trade agreement reached late last year.
