While I agree our Presidents often abuse the office's power to use a defense of national security as a legal justification, I honestly don't think this particul

While I agree our Presidents often abuse the office's power to use a defense of national security as a legal justification, I honestly don't think this particular situation is one of those instances. I should also point out that Congress has passed a bill which bans TikTok (and I assume similar Chinese owned communications apps, I havent read the bill) from Government owned devices. So it's not like Congress is at odds within itself when it comes to understanding the overall potential security threat TikTok imposes on it's users when the CCP is allowed direct and unimpeeded access to user's data. I also think that trying to pursue legislative routes when implementing policies that aim to protect not just America's but our allies best interests when conducting business with China is too slow and too political of a process when it comes to trade negotiations. That is one of main compelling reasons why I believe the founding fathers decided they needed to have a powerful executive despite the fact that they didn't want one. Negotiations are difficult enough as it is when it's the Government trying to get their government to act in it's own best interest. It would be virtually impossible to try and have our legislative branch negotiate with every other nation's legislature/executives directly. It would be too difficult to offer terms you couldn't guarantee are concrete. For these reasons I think it's fair if the President uses national defense as an argument to use aggressive tactics during trade negotiations. It's important to note that as the People it's easier for us to reverse policy the popular majority of the nation as a whole doesn't like because the executive is the only branch of Government everybody gets a say in who gets to run it. This allows us to avoid situations in the legislature where the people we vote into Congress make concessions across the aisle on things we elected them to be against. Or when the individual parties themselves can't come to a common concession on issues. This is also why you also need an executive to act as commander in chief. The legislature should be deciding who to declare war on but if you tried to make every single individual strategic move conducted in war something that first had to be passed as legislation, our government wouldn't be able to defend itself because it can't keep up with the fast paced, rapidly changing dynamics of war. Trade and warfare are very similar in this respect.