Temu Attacks Remind Us U.S. Politicians Were Never Stopping At TikTok

Temu is a low-cost online marketplace that has had the temerity to achieve popularity with American buyers while also being Chinese. In response to Temu’s achievements in the world’s most competitive consumer market, Nebraska attorney general Mike Hilgers has filed a complaint that Temu installs “malware” of some kind that gives the company access to “sensitive information.”

That’s too bad, and it signals that American politicians are more in the business of protecting U.S. businesses from competition than they care about national security. Which means every Chinese business that Americans like will sadly face political pressure for succeeding in the competition for the American consumer.

All that’s required to understand why the above is true is a visit to Temu’s website, which is plainly popular with American shoppers who want a lot more for a lot less. Yes, Temu represents competition. That it represents competition from China is a beautiful thing, a sign of progress. A sign that people who were once desperately poor due to the abject horrors of communism are increasingly free to produce for a world that they can commensurately consume the plenty of.

What’s unfortunate is that much like with TikTok, excuses for government action are being produced by a portion of the U.S. commentariat traditionally of the Ronald Reagan view that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Since Temu collects data on customers and visitors to its site in the way that all businesses do and have always done, good business practices are being portrayed as possible avenues of data collection for the CCP which, even if true, solves itself. As in if Americans are concerned about where their personal data might end up, they don’t have to use Temu. Freedom works, and all that.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, the Holy Grail of opinion elevating the genius of free people and free markets, and the locale of opinion most associated with Reagan, is seemingly ignoring the most terrifying words as it addresses Temu. As a Journal editorial argued yesterday, “As long as Chinese companies are putting backdoors and malware on American devices, state AGs can help protect consumers.” This didn’t read right. Government meddling in consumer choices doesn’t suddenly attain noble qualities just because the provider of market goods is from China.

Furthermore, it raises the obvious question about when this will stop. If we forget the highly questionable excuses for the political class’s attacks on TikTok over the years, what’s apparent is that those same dubious excuses are going to be a catch-all for every Chinese business that has the gall to prosper in the U.S. Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found in the words of the same Journal editorial, which observed that “A dilemma of dealing with Chinese companies in a free society like America is their mandated allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.” Stop and think about that. It’s a veiled excuse for government at all levels in the U.S. to attack every Chinese business that succeeds stateside. This protectionism will harm Americans twice, but realistically many more ways.

For one, if national security is going to be the routine excuse for not allowing Americans to patronize Chinese businesses, then by extension the employees of Chinese businesses will have greatly reduced means to purchase from American businesses. Products buy products, always and everywhere.

Second, what a shame if this blanket excuse for suffocating Chinese business expansion in the U.S. robs Americans of the chance to divide up work with some of the world’s most productive people. In other words, every day the Chinese get up and go to work, Americans become richer.

Add safer to the above. When people are trading with each other, war becomes frightfully expensive. Let’s not allow protectionism masked as “national security” to get in the way of what enhances that same national security. Put another way, let’s not allow the political class to expand it’s shameful mugging of TikTok to every Chinese company.