On Wednesday, the Chair of the United States Senate Commerce Committee, Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, announced her support for a bipartisan bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the application or face a ban in the United States.
In March, the House of Representatives passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversarial Controlled Applications Act” with a broad bipartisan vote, just one week after the bill was initially introduced. Now, with the support of the Senate Commerce Committee Chair, the path is cleared to move the bill forward to a Senate vote.
In a statement on Wednesday evening, Cantwell said, “I am pleased that Speaker Michael Johnson and House leaders have adopted my suggestion to extend the divestment deadline for ByteDance company’s TikTok from six months to one year. As I have said, extending the divestment deadline is necessary to ensure that potential buyers have enough time to reach a deal; I support this updated legislation.”
This adjustment addresses one of the concerns raised by critics of the bill, particularly considering the previously short deadline for TikTok’s parent company to sell the application before facing a ban.
However, other lawmakers have raised different concerns; some progressive Democrats have criticized the bill for infringing on users’ freedom of speech, so these concerns may surface as the legislation progresses.
The bill update is part of a package of legislation announced by House Republican leaders on Wednesday. In addition to the provision to force the sale of TikTok, the bill includes new sanctions on Iran, providing military aid to Ukraine in the form of forgivable loans, and authorizing the federal government to use seized Russian assets to pay for Ukrainian reconstruction.
This bill related to TikTok is referred to as the “21st Century Act” and is part of a larger foreign aid package. The House is expected to debate each provision in a vote on Saturday.
TikTok has strongly pushed back against the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversarial Controlled Applications Act” and denied accusations that the application poses a threat to U.S. national security.
President Biden has stated that if the bill is passed, he will sign it into law.
However, even if the bill becomes law, potential bans could face legal challenges, as efforts by the former Trump administration and various states to ban the application were previously halted in federal courts.