Trump: Microsoft should pay ‘key money’ to Treasury for facilitating TikTok deal

So essentially:

"If you want to buy this thing then you must pay a kickback to the government for brokering the deal and if you don't we will use government power to ban it."

This should be a notice to all tech founders, who can shortly expect a massive degradation in global FCPA adherence and may expect foreign reciprocity in key markets.

Sounds similar to when a US company buys a foreign company and the foreign government requires a minimum number of jobs kept in the foreign country to allow the deal forward. For example Germany. But calling it key money. Wow.

Why shouldn’t there be a tariff? These seems fair.

This is outright extortion ... Shame on Trump and his administration,