Biden's Latest Move Against TikTok Raises Questions About Ban, Owner Sale

Hannah Kelley, a research assistant in the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security, said she doesn’t believe that ByteDance will agree to divest from TikTok.

“This has been the sticking point in CFIUS negotiations for over two years now, how to mitigate the identified U.S. national security concerns, especially regarding data flows and access, short of full divestment,” Kelley said, referring to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

“I think Washington has decided that Project Texas, or the re-routing of U.S. user data through Oracle cloud servers, won’t be enough to satisfy its security concerns, especially as the company has consistently struggled to maintain trust with the U.S. government given a steady stream of leaks and reports of data mishandling or misuse,” she added.

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“Aside from developments within the CFIUS process itself, I think bipartisan support for the Restrict Act, which would allow the U.S. government to restrict and even ban foreign technologies on the basis of national security, may have helped move the needle,” Kelley said.

She added that rising tensions between the U.S. and China over recent export control restrictions and Chinese spy balloons may have influenced this decision.

“The existential threat that China poses to the United States goes far beyond TikTok, spanning across the political, economic, and military domains,” she said. “I think all of this comes into play when considering an app so closely tied to the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”

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