Judicial Checks on Abuse of the National Security Rationale: The Case of Xiaomi SHARE During the Trump administration, national security rose in prominence as a reason for restricting trade, investment and other economic activity. Among other examples, purported national security concerns led to the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (as our colleagues Scott Lincicome and Inu Manak describe here); there were bans on Chinese social media apps WeChat and TikTok; and most recently, the shares of certain Chinese companies, including electronics maker Xiaomi, were prohibited from being traded by Americans. There are, of course, some legitimate security concerns relating to China specifically and to the world more broadly. However, when U.S. courts have been asked to review the actions of the Trump administration that were supposedly based on national security considerations, they have often rejected the justifications being offered. WeChat and TikTok were granted preliminary injunctions against the Trump administration’s bans (see here and here). And just recently, Xiaomi received a preliminary injunction of its own. While these decisions are not the final word, they do offer some indications of how U.S. courts will approach the issue.