Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps.

The ban aims to curb the “threat to Americans posed by Chinese software applications, which have large user bases and access to sensitive data,” according to a senior administration official that spoke to Reuters.

Trump’s ban, which comes just two weeks before Joe Biden takes office, includes a total of eight apps, including Ant Group’s Alipay, VMate which is published by Alibaba subsidiary UCWeb, Tencent Holdings’ QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay, CamScanner, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, and Beijing Kingsoft Office Software’s WPS Office.

The executive order states that the US government must take “aggressive action” against app developers in China to protect national security, Reuters has said.

The Whitehouse claimed that Chinese connected software applications can “capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information.”

The order states that this data collection would “permit China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information.”

Hua Chunying, foreign ministry spokeswoman, said that China will take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights of companies in view of the Trump order, Reuters reported.

Although there is a 45-day timeline laid out by the order, a US official told Reuters that the Commerce Department plans to act before 20 January to identify prohibited transactions on the apps.

In August, Donald Trump signed an executive order to block some US-based transactions with TikTok and WeChat, but the courts blocked the move on freedom of speech grounds.

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