The House of Representatives on Wednesday renewed efforts to disrupt the popular social media app, pushing ahead with a bill that would require TikTok to be sold by its Chinese owners or banned in the United States.
Speaker Mike Johnson said he intends to package foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan into the bill, which is an amended version of a standalone bill the House passed last month.
The new bill still requires TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to owners who have resolved national security concerns, but it would extend the sale period to an initial six-month period. The agreement includes an option to extend the contract to nine months. Bill announced by House leadership. If there is progress toward a sale, the president could extend the deadline by another 90 days.
House lawmakers are scheduled to vote Saturday on a series of bills, including a TikTok ban and other measures popular with Republicans, aimed at inducing lawmakers to vote on foreign aid. If the package passes, the measures could be sent to the Senate as a single bill for an immediate vote. President Biden has said he will sign the TikTok bill into law once it reaches his desk.
“The move to package TikTok is certainly unusual, but it could be successful,” said Paul Gallant, a policy analyst at financial services firm TD Cowen. He added that trying to force passage without further negotiations with the Senate is “a bit of brinkmanship.”
The new effort is the most aggressive effort yet by lawmakers to wrest TikTok from Chinese ownership, citing national security concerns. They have raised the possibility that the Chinese government could require TikTok to hand over data on U.S. users or use the app for propaganda purposes. Previous House bills had met with skepticism in the Senate over concerns that they would not survive legal challenges.
TikTok said national security concerns were unwarranted and said it had spent more than $1 billion on detailed plans for its U.S. operations that would cut off user data and provide third-party oversight of content recommendations.
TikTok has not received any comment at this time.
TikTok has a huge influence on culture and politics, and is used by 170 million people each month in the United States. The company announced it has approximately 7,000 employees in the United States.
Uncertainty about whether the Senate will vote on the bill passed by the House in March sparked aggressive lobbying in the Senate and weeks of pressure on senators to advance the bill. By tying the TikTok bill to high-profile aid to Ukraine and Israel, House leaders could force the Senate to get involved.
If the bill is signed into law, it will likely face weeks or months of legal challenges. In 2020, federal judges blocked President Donald J. Trump's efforts to ban TikTok or force its sale. Last year, a federal judge in Montana temporarily blocked a statewide ban on TikTok from taking effect, blocking the first such ban in the nation.
Other challenges remain, including the possibility that the Chinese government could block the sale of TikTok. The app is expected to have a high selling price that is out of reach for many potential buyers.
The campaign to force the sale of TikTok united lawmakers and government officials who share national security concerns. The White House said it helped lawmakers draft the bill, which passed the House in March.
Officials from the Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed lawmakers in the House and Senate about their concerns, spurring efforts to pass the bill. Some of these press conferences remain classified.
