Congress final 12 months handed laws to power China’s ByteDance to divest TikTok by January 19 or face a ban, however President Donald Trump has directed the Justice Division to not implement the regulation.
Markey’s proposal would eradicate the requirement that ByteDance promote TikTok’s US operations if it establishes transparency necessities about content material and limits overseas entry to the information of TikTok’s American customers.
Final month, Trump prolonged by 90 days to September 17 a deadline for ByteDance to divest the US belongings of TikTok.
Some Democratic lawmakers together with Markey argue Trump has no authorized authority to increase the deadline and have steered the deal into consideration wouldn’t meet authorized necessities.
“For months, I’ve been urging my colleagues to seek out an alternate path to the TikTok ban that retains TikTok on-line with out jeopardizing nationwide safety,” Markey mentioned. “With Trump persevering with to illegally lengthen the divestment deadline, it is time for Congress to reassert its legislative energy, repair its mistake, and think about a brand new strategy to TikTok.”
A deal had been within the works this spring that may spin off TikTok’s US operations into a brand new US-based agency, majority-owned and operated by US buyers. This stalled after China indicated it might not approve it following Trump’s bulletins of steep tariffs on Chinese language items.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick mentioned final week TikTok must cease working in the USA if China doesn’t approve a deal for the sale of the app.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday mentioned the way forward for TikTok didn’t come up in current commerce talks with China.
Trump has 3 times granted reprieves from federal enforcement of the regulation that mandated the sale or shutdown of TikTok that was presupposed to take impact in January.
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