John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, says in commentary for The Hill about the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that Congress “built in a one-time-only, 90-day extension that the president could employ to allow for a seamless transition. This flexibility was provided to give either the outgoing or incoming administration the opportunity to ensure a deal is made, keeping both our digital safety and American users in mind” (“TikTok can still save itself—here’s how,” January 21, 2025).
This is about the Act as applicable to TikTok and ByteDance. So far, ByteDance has refused to sell TikTok.
Moolenaar’s article links to the form of the Act in which it passed the House, H.R. 7521. The legislation in that form does not seem to refer to any one-time 90-day extension to be granted at the president’s discretion. However, the legislation was folded into a Senate bill. This bill, H.R. 815, the bill signed by the president at the time, Biden, includes the following passage under “Division H: Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”:
With respect to a foreign adversary controlled application, the President may grant a 1-time extension of not more than 90 days with respect to the date on which this subsection would otherwise apply to such application pursuant to paragraph (2), if the President certifies to Congress that—
(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application;
(B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and
(C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension.
On the day before Donald Trump became President of the United States, when he announced that he would grant a ninety-day extension, and the U.S. ban on TikTok had kicked in, had each of these requirements been met? I don’t think so.
Is there today, the day after Trump’s inauguration, “evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture,” and are all the “relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divesture” in place? I don’t think so.
