President Trump’s suggestion that the US should get a “substantial cut” of the sale price of Chinese company Tiktok is not sitting well in China, particularly in China’s state media, where papers publicly objected to Trump’s “smash and grab” idea, calling it a “mafia deal.“
Analysts were all broadly critical of the Trump plan as not in keeping with the way the US historically does business. Chinese papers called it “theft” and that roughly sums up how a lot of others are viewing this proposal.
Chinese papers are also calling for retaliation if Trump follows through on this plan. The sum total of this plan is that Microsoft buys TikTok, but the US government gets most of the purchase price as a bribe for not banning Tiktok before the deal goes through.
The papers say China has options for responding against the US if they steal TikTok in such a way, though they were vague about what those options might be. Potentially some economic measures against the US would be taken, though all indications are that Trump believes he can do this.
So much for the much-vaunted “free market”.