So you don't ridiculise your country by promoting freedom of trade but seizing the assets of the countries you don't like when it's a better tech than yours.

It will be just as easy for them, just less profitable. Now they'll just pay Zuckerberg or Musk for the information. If they aren't already.

The fact that China is using disinformation to stop the forced sale of TikTok is pretty telling that they will be negatively impacted by this.

sell to a JV with a local company at fire sales price

The Chinese policy is to share ownership with locals, so that a firm isn't simply extracting wealth from the Chinese market.

The American policy is to seize a pre-existing firm after it has developed, by accusing its Singapore founder of being a secret Chinese Communist.

The US government works for the billionaires that run the economy. Many billionaires want to buy tiktok. In fact, there's already teams of people set up for buying out tiktok. The government is just the tool for the hostile acquisition. No one said the US government is directly purchasing tiktok.