2LT International News

WASHINGTON, D.C.: This week, U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he supported legislation to force China’s ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to divest the short video app, which 170 million Americans use.

McConnell said, “Requiring the divestment of Beijing-influenced entities from TikTok would land squarely within established constitutional precedent.”

“It would begin to turn back the tide of an enormous threat to America’s children,” he added, stressing that through TikTok, “America’s greatest strategic rival is threatening our security right here on U.S. soil in tens of millions of American homes.”

On March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 352-65 to give ByteDance six months to divest its U.S. assets of TikTok or face a ban.

On Monday, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell said she would meet with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner to discuss “a game plan on how to proceed.”

“The key point here is getting a tool that can be used to stop foreign actors from doing deleterious things that might harm U.S. citizens,” Cantwell said.

Schumer said senators can make progress “on a path forward on TikTok legislation.”

In response, TikTok said that a ban “would violate the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans.”

According to many lawmakers and the Biden administration, TikTok poses national security risks because China could coerce it to provide American user data..