Over a dozen major U.S. international business executives joined in a call with White House officials on Tuesday to raise their concerns about President Donald Trump's planned restrictions targeting the WeChat app from China's Tencent Holdings Ltd., according to a Wall Street Journal report.  

Apple Inc., Ford Motor Co., Walmart Inc., and Walt Disney Co. were among those represented in the call in which they expressed their anxiety that competitiveness in China may be undermined by the order. As planned, the new presidential executive order will take effect next month, banning U.S. companies from "any transaction that is related to WeChat."  

Other participants in the call included Procter & Gamble Co, Intel Corp, MetLife Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Morgan Stanley, United Parcel Service Inc, Merck & Co Inc and Cargill Inc. 

Investment disruption 

In 2019, Chinese visitors spent more than 1.3 billion dollars visiting the San Francisco Bay Area. For many of them, WeChat, with its ability to make payments, played a valuable role.  

"We have worked with WeChat in the past to identify opportunities to work with restaurants that can get set up. WeChat actually recently started a series where they are working with Napa Valley to promote business there and promote tourism," said Darlene Chiu Bryant, executive director of GlobalSF. 

Bryant also cautioned against a disruption in cross-border investment, as his company helps bring in investment from around the world, especially China.  

"Seeing Chinese investment go through the door, I think it is definitely going to slow down, and they are definitely going to think twice, and I think unfortunately for America, that a lot of the investment may actually go to Europe instead.”  

Privacy concerns

In his executive order, President Trump cited WeChat's user data being allegedly accessed by the Chinese government as a major reason for the ban. Anna Han, interim dean of Santa Clara University Law School, shared the data privacy concerns, but said that it's already well-known that WeChat was monitored. She questioned what the ban would achieve.  

"The U.S.-China trade relations and I use that term broadly, has been in some ways the worst it's ever been since the first time when the countries first established relations in the late 70s," said Han. 

"There is distrust, there is attacks, counterattacks, retaliations on every trade move you make. You ban our apps, we ban yours. You close our consulate, we close yours. So there's this whole tit for tat going on and that's not good for business," she elaborated. 

One glaring question that remains is how the ban will actually be implemented. Professor Han said it's difficult to try and block an app or require users to remove it from their phones in the U.S. She predicted that it's more likely that support for the app in the U.S. will discontinue, meaning users will be left with an old version that no longer has the latest features or updates. 

(Mark Niu contributed to this story)