WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden said on March 8 he will sign legislation that gives China’s ByteDance about six months to divest the popular TikTok short video app, even as his rival Donald Trump raised concerns about a ban on the service used by 170 million Americans.
The United States House of Representatives plans to vote on March 12 or 13 on the TikTok crackdown Bill after a committee on March 7 unanimously approved the measure. The House will vote on the proposal under rules requiring two-thirds of members to vote “yes” to win approval.
“If they pass it, I’ll sign it,” Mr Biden, a Democrat, told reporters. The Bill faces an uncertain outcome in the Senate, where some lawmakers say they want changes to the legislation.
Trump, who is seeking a return to the White House in the November election, expressed objections to banning TikTok.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook... will double (its) business,” he said on social media, adding that he does not want Facebook “doing better”.
Trump, a Republican, previously criticised Facebook parent Meta Platforms for revoking his access to Facebook and Instagram after removing two of his posts during the Jan 6, 2021, US Capitol riot. His accounts were reinstated in February 2023.
The Trump campaign did not immediately comment on whether he has a position on the legislation. Meta Platforms declined to comment.
The Justice Department told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that a divestiture Bill, rather than a Bill banning TikTok, will put the government in a stronger legal position, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Mr Mike Pence, who served as vice-president under Trump, endorsed the proposed House legislation on TikTok.
“China is poisoning the minds of American children. Enough is enough,” he wrote on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Bill will give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok. If it fails to do so, app stores operated by Apple, Alphabet’s Google and others will not be able to legally offer TikTok or provide Web-hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.
In 2020, Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, but was blocked by the courts.
Republican Senator Rand Paul, who previously blocked attempts to fast-track a TikTok ban, responded to Trump’s statement that said the former president helped address concerns about US users of TikTok through a US$1.5 billion (S$2 billion) company project.
“So why is the House GOP siding with Biden and still trying to ban TikTok?” Mr Paul wrote on X, using an acronym for the Grand Old Party, a nickname for the Republican Party. “If Congress bans TikTok, they will be acting just like the Chinese communists who have also banned TikTok... Why not just defend the First Amendment?”
Trump said in an August 2020 executive order that TikTok data collection “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information – potentially allowing China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage”.
TikTok, which says it has not and will not share US user data with the Chinese government, argues that the House Bill amounts to a ban. It is unclear if China will approve any sale or if TikTok can be divested in six months.
“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the House Committee on Energy and Commerce vote. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression.”
The app is popular and getting legislation approved by both the House and Senate in an election year may be difficult. In February, Mr Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.
Trump’s campaign has not joined TikTok. REUTERS
