Is the illegal act accessing or providing?

You just listed two lines that say "it's illegal to try and break this law", but if the unlawful act is "providing" the service it wouldn't lead to the conclusion in your comment about someone using a vpn to try and access tik tok

It reads to me as more specifically about using than providing, honestly. Context:

Definitions:

> (A) IN GENERAL.—The term “covered transaction” means a transaction in which an entity described in subparagraph (B) has any interest (including through an interest in a contract for the provision of the technology or service), or any class of such transactions.

> (17) TRANSACTION.—The term “transaction” means any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or use of any information and communications technology product or service, including ongoing activities such as managed services, data transmission, software updates, repairs, or the provision of data hosting services, or a class of such transactions.

Note this includes "data transmission" and "use of any information and communications technology product or service." And then the law allows the US to:

(a) In general.—The Secretary, in consultation with the relevant executive department and agency heads, is authorized to and shall take action to identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate, including by negotiating, entering into, or imposing, and enforcing any mitigation measure to address any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States that the Secretary determines— ... interfering in, or altering the result or reported result of a Federal election ... or otherwise poses an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the safety of United States persons.

That's very broad. Note: any risk by any person. Not just by a foreign adversary - this reads to me that if the Secretary of Commerce were to list TikTok on that list of entities, Americans using TikTok services could well fall under fire too. To make it more explicit, in the list of specific unlawful acts:

> No person may engage in any conduct prohibited by or contrary to, or refrain from engaging in any conduct required by any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued under this Act.

And the part that makes using a VPN to attempt to evade this itself unlawful:

> No person may engage in any transaction or take any other action with intent to evade the provisions of this Act, or any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued thereunder.

(Remember from above, a "transaction" includes the use of any software, but even aside from that this uses the wording "or take any other action" - so it's even broader.)

And what's the penalty for this? There's a civil penalty which is (a bit) lighter, but let's just cite one of the criminal penalties:

> IN GENERAL.—A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.

So, using a VPN to access TikTok is also a violation. But "aiding or abetting" someone in doing so is also a violation. Would providing a VPN service to access TikTok be considered aiding in this sense? Maybe!

If in response VPN services block their users from accessing TikTok, then VPN users will see these VPN companies for what they really are: just another middle-man in an already MitM'd internet.