Every country on Earth gives its executive some discretion when dealing with foreign powers. The idea that TikTok should have the same due process rights as American corporations is naive (putting it mildly).
"Rule of law" means you need to have a specific rule to govern government's action. The use of the catch-all "national security" justification here is in itself proof that nothing better exists in US law, or they would cite that.
Among the free countries, I'm most familiar with the EU's laws: there are some provisions limiting, for example, acquisitions of land, mergers, and military technology to countries like China. But there's no "we don't like them" power. Those powers belong to a king, not a president.
EU companies have explicit guarantees against discrimination in other EU countries, and most every trade agreement contains similar provision. I believe even WTO rules, which both China and the US are theoretically bound by, would exclude arbitrary bans.
What I'm saying is it's largely hypocritical -- telling China they need to open up their markets to foreign businesses from America just the way Americans do for foreign entities, and then once a Chinese company becomes successful enough to garner the slightest bit of attention forcing a sale to an American company. It's exactly the thing America has been accusing China of doing for mandatory joint ventures.
They can do it, by all means, however it further erodes the brand value of America on the world stage as "open for business."
That's not really a compelling counterargument. The idea is that goods and services brought to market in the US are materially improving the lives of Americans. It doesn't matter really what the home state looks like. If it did, Americans would have never started importing Saudi oil. Or Rwandan tantalum for capacitors. Or Nestle chocolate, which is farmed by child slaves in the Ivory Coast. But don't worry, in 2019, they again, for about the 10th time, promised to stop using child slaves. [1]
This is basically America telling the world to accept American companies, no questions asked, no matter how big or manipulative. Criticizing other countries for their protectionist self-serving practices. And then literally the second a foreign product gets big and interesting enough forcing their sale to a US domestic entity. This is what America is complaining China does.
The worst part? Instead of trying to find some basis in law as one does in a rule-of-law jurisdiction, they just pulled out the national security™ ban-hammer, which cannot be challenged in a meaningful way. That's straight out of China's playbook. If rule of law is the china shop, national security justifications are the bull.
They just ceded the entirety of what was left of the high ground.
There are literally thousands of regulations limiting what we can import into the US, from drugs to protected wildlife to cuban cigars, including total embargos on particular companies and even countries. You're just cherry-picking of a few you want but don't see.
And by the way, the US govt certainly pushes for free trade, but that actually means implementation on a bilateral country-by-country basis (a couple dozen countries or so by now). The public is certainly never going to go for unilateral free trade with anyone who wants to sell anything. I'm sure that's true for almost every country.
Every country on Earth gives its executive some discretion when dealing with foreign powers. The idea that TikTok should have the same due process rights as American corporations is naive (putting it mildly).