President Donald Trump’s additional 75 day delay to TikTok’s sale-or-ban deadline leaves service providers like Apple, Google, and Oracle on shaky ground, and, according to one influential Democrat, is straight-up “against the law.”
After Trump announced the extension on Friday, 12 Republican members of the House Select Committee on China, including Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI), released a joint statement in response. The statement did not address legal concerns with the second extension, but it said that “any resolution must ensure that U.S. law is followed, and that the Chinese Communist Party does not have access to American user data or the ability to manipulate the content consumed by Americans.” The letter says signatories “look forward to more details” on a proposed deal.
In a separate statement, three Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) struck a similar note, saying that, “any deal must finally end China’s ability to surveil and potentially manipulate the American people through this app.”
“The whole thing is a sham if the algorithm doesn’t move from out of Beijing’s hands”
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) was more critical in a phone interview with The Verge. “The whole thing is a sham if the algorithm doesn’t move from out of Beijing’s hands,” Warner said. “And close to 80 percent of Republicans knew this was a national security threat — will they find their voice now?”
Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office delaying enforcement of the TikTok divestiture law, a move legal experts already found questionable. Then, he failed to announce a deal before the new April 5th deadline amid chaos over new global tariffs. Letting the delay expire would have put US companies that serviced TikTok after the deadline at even greater risk of hefty penalties.
The original Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support to address what lawmakers insisted was a pressing national security threat, then upheld by the Supreme Court in January. TikTok has long denied that the Chinese government could access US user data or put its thumb on the scales of the recommendation feed through ByteDance, but many lawmakers have consistently doubted that defense.
As the Trump administration has opted to effectively ignore the law, however, Congress has been relatively quiet.
“Trump’s unilateral extension is illegal and forces tech companies to once again decide between risking ruinous legal liability or taking TikTok offline”
A few Senate Democrats, including Ed Markey (D-MA), recently warned Trump that another extension would only introduce more legal uncertainty, and some expressed doubt that some of the reported deal scenarios could even resolve the app’s legal concerns. In a statement after Trump’s second extension, Markey says while he’d like to see the deadline pushed, “Trump’s unilateral extension is illegal and forces tech companies to once again decide between risking ruinous legal liability or taking TikTok offline.” He called the move “unfair to those companies and unfair to TikTok’s users and creators.” Instead, Trump should go through Congress to pass Markey’s bill to the extend the deadline, he says.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a member of the China Committee who’s criticized the law and warned it will harm free expression and creators’ livelihoods, also wants to see a solution go through Congress, but is seeking a full repeal of the law. Still, he called Trump’s delay a “good step.”
The new statements from China Committee and E&C Republicans appear to be the first coordinated moves to put a firm line in the sand on the topic. Some Republicans who support the divest-or-ban law have previously urged Trump’s compliance in one-off statements or writings. Moolenaar previously warned in an op-ed that an adequate deal must fully break ties with ByteDance after reports that Trump was considering a deal with Oracle that would potentially leave some ties intact. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told reporters earlier this week that if a deal doesn’t comply with the statute, he “would advise the President against it.” If he can’t get a deal to sell the company in a way that fully complies, Hawley thinks Trump “ought to enforce the statute and ban TikTok. This middle way, I don’t think is viable.”
Warner maintains that lawmakers want a TikTok sale that keeps the app in the US, and he says the Biden administration should have been more aggressive in getting negotiations started. He remains concerned that TikTok’s ownership structure could allow a foreign adversary government to influence young Americans.
”During the negotiations, we saw the enormous bias in TikTok on things like the Uyghurs, the Hong Kong protests, the conflict in Gaza,” says Warner. “That was how we got 80 percent of the vote.” Warner says he remains concerned about the security of US user data, but sees the potential for TikTok to be used to “shape public opinion” as the more serious threat. Still, lawmakers seem unlikely to do much beyond (maybe) trying to pass a new law should Trump continue to flout the existing one. “Congress,” says Hawley, “we don’t have an enforcement arm of our own.”
