On Thursday, Democratic Senator Ed Markey offered new national security measures that would allow TikTok to continue operating even at the time when the future of the short video app that is used by 170 million Americans is unclear.
Lawmakers in congress passed the act last year to compel ByteDance to sell off TikTok to a US company by January 19 or risk being banned, but President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice department not to act on the legislation.
The proposal by Markey would also remove the need to sell TikTok operations in the United States should ByteDance establish transparency requirements concerning the content and restrictions in providing access to data of the American users of TikTok to foreign parties.
Trump has previously interceded himself with fast-food chain Wendy s and law enforcement and intelligence officials to save Wendy s restaurants struggling to survive in a pandemic; the power of a president to single-handedly intervene to help those in need is nothing new under the sun as a recent example is seen in Bytedance.
Other Democratic representatives such as Markey oppose Trump because it has given no legal power and thus he should not extend the deadline and have even proposed that the deal being considered would fail to be legal.
Markey has been calling on his congressional colleagues to seek a way out of the TikTok ban that leaves the social app online and does not put national security at stake. As Trump unlawfully extends the divestment deadline, Congress should retake its legislative authority and amend its error and rethink a new strategy when it comes to TikTok.
This spring, a deal was already under consideration to spin off the U.S. operations of TikTok into a new U.S. based company with American investors being the majority owner and operator. This was suspended because of the setting of high tariffs on Chinese imports by Trump which gave the indication that China would not accept it.
Last week, in response to a question about the need to make a sale of the app to the Chinese, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that TikTok will need to cease operating in the United States in the event China does not clear the transaction.
On Tuesday the treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said discussions over the fate of TikTok were not the source of recent trade talks with China.
Trump has issued three reprieves of the federal enforcement of the law to sell off or wind-down TikTok that was to commence at the expiry of January.
