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US House of Representatives votes again for Tiktok sale
The US House of Representatives has again voted for a law that would bring the short video app Tiktok under American control. photo
© Kiichiro Sato/AP/dpa
Twice is better: Democrats and Republicans are once again voting for a law that could lead to the ban of Tiktok in the USA. Now it has a better chance of passing the Senate.
The US House of Representatives has once again voted for a bill that would ban the popular Chinese short video app To bring Tiktok under American control. The House of Representatives in Washington adopted the draft on Saturday with a large bipartisan majority.
The law could lead to Tiktok being banned from American app stores if the service remains owned by the Chinese company Bytedance. The draft stipulates a nine-month deadline for a sale. US President Joe Biden can extend this by another three months.
Tiktok is the only internationally successful online platform that does not come from the USA. ByteDance is viewed across all parties in the USA as a Chinese company that must bow to the will of the Chinese Communist Party. The US House of Representatives already approved a similar draft in March, which provides for a slightly shorter deadline for the sale. This is currently stuck in the Senate.
Democrats in the Senate want to agree
The new TikTok draft is part of a multi-part package in the US House of Representatives that combines several Republican priorities and is also intended to make new aid possible for Ukraine, which is attacked by Russia. It is therefore certain that the draft will now pass the Senate, in which US President Joe Biden’s Democrats have a majority. Biden had made it clear in the past that he would sign a corresponding TikTok law.
The draft approved by the House of Representatives on Saturday contains other points, including sanctions on Iran. It also provides for the seizure of Russian assets. The text instructs US President Biden to set up a Ukraine support fund. Biden should therefore work with partners to develop a mechanism that makes it possible to use the frozen Russian assets. In total it is several hundred billion US dollars. The USA in particular has recently repeatedly put pressure on Russia to make greater use of Russian assets. The European G7 states, including Germany, view this critically. The US controls only a tiny fraction of the frozen assets. The majority is in the European Union.