Dear Editor,

I find it strange that, with so many commentators and business people, someone has not made their displeasure known about the situation that is taking place with the US Government against private Chinese companies.

The US has decided to force the hand of other countries by proposing sanctions on them if they try to do business with Huawei. Now it’s TikTok and other platforms at which the US has taken aim. The Donald Trump Administration has clearly said if TikTok doesn’t sell its US operations to an American company the US Treasury Department will ban it. It sounds like extortion to me.

This should ring alarm bells around the world regardless of what anybody may think of a communist China. Today it’s China, but tomorrow it will be Jamaica tech developers or another country. It’s time for all of us to speak out against such terrible moves by the US Government, because Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other platforms all track their users, and some also share information with the US Government.

The US is going way overboard, and the world should stand behind TikTok and make it clear that if the US should ban it, then everyone will make a stand against it.

Trade must be fair; one cannot want to destroy other companies just because those companies are doing better business than theirs. This is the game of competition and, as everyone knows, you have to have what it takes to stay in the game.

To use extortion is bad for business, and it should not be accepted, regardless of one’s relationship with China. Remember, it’s China today, but it could be Jamaica tomorrow.

Further, China has come to our aid many times.

Robert Clarke

Rclarke88@hotmail.com