House Committee Passes Bill to Ban TikTok Transactions
The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 24-16 this week to advance a bill that would grant the Biden administration new authorities to ban U.S. transactions with TikTok. It also would require the president to impose certain sanctions on entities or people that transfer U.S. personal data to entities under the influence of the Chinese government. The bill, which was advanced along party lines, must still be passed by the full House and Senate before it’s sent for President Joe Biden’s signature.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The measure passed despite opposition from Democrats, including Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., who said the committee should’ve spent more time assessing the potential impact of a bill that would “effectively ban” TikTok. “A bill with such wide-ranging consequence deserves significant consideration and requires Congress to conduct effective due diligence through debate and consultation with experts, none of which has been done in the few short days between H.R. 1153’s introduction and passage out of committee,” Meeks said in a March 1 statement, adding that it was passed “without the text even being made available to the public.”
He also pointed to the fact that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is in the middle of a review of the app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance (see 2302220024). “We should await the results of that review and gather all the facts in order to craft a strong bipartisan bill that addresses our concerns without hurting U.S. interests,” Meeks said.