By demanding that the Chinese sell the American activities of TikTok to an American if they wish to continue to be able to exist in the United States, Donald Trump is giving back to Beijing, which acts in the same way.

Nicolas Barré takes stock of a current economic issue.

If you're new to TikTok, you're missing out on a global phenomenon.

This Chinese app has been downloaded over two billion times and is driving Donald Trump crazy.

The TikTok file is one of Donald Trump's emergencies and this story is out of the ordinary.

TikTok is a social network on which we exchange small viral videos.

Americans love it, there are over 100 million active users in the United States and already over 800 million worldwide.

The problem is, TikTok is Chinese.

However, can a Chinese social network, with what that means in terms of personal data control, infiltrate millions of American homes?

For Donald Trump, the answer is no and he has given TikTok, more precisely his Chinese parent company ByteDance, until September 20 to sell TikTok's American activities to an American.

Otherwise, the company would be banned.

Did he bend the Chinese?

An agreement was reached on Monday for the sale of these activities to the American software giant Oracle, whose founder, Larry Ellison, is close to Trump, it helps.

To continue operating in the United States, TikTok will therefore have to partner with Oracle.

It's a bit like if we in Europe were telling Facebook that in order to continue operating with us, they would have to sell their European activities to a French or German group.

The United States is actually demanding from the Chinese what the Chinese are imposing on the whole world.

Do you want to access our market?

You have to form an alliance with a local group, enter into a joint venture and share your technology.

Washington is giving Beijing back the change.

This case also shows that Americans are worried about China becoming a great technological power.

Trump is trying by all means to slow the rise of the Chinese rival, this is the meaning of the war he is waging on 5G with Huawei.

The personal data security argument is very practical, but the truth is also that the Chinese compete with the American tech giants and sometimes do better as in telecoms equipment.

So Trump goes to the front, but so does Europe.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday during a summit with the Chinese president that it was necessary to "rebalance the asymmetries" with Beijing.

It's not Trump, but it means roughly the same thing: let's not be naive about Beijing.

The world is hardening.