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Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has issued an executive order banning any transactions with the Chinese owners of the apps TikTok and WeChat, starting in 45 days. 

The orders on Thursday came as the Trump administration said it was stepping up efforts to purge "untrusted" Chinese apps from US digital networks and called the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok and messenger app WeChat "significant threats".

The TikTok app, owned by ByteDance, may be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, and the US "must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security," Trump said in one order.