CFIUS chief defends bill that would give agency new powers to counter China

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CFIUS chief defends bill that would give agency new powers to counter China

She said on Wednesday that she supports Congress giving her agency new tools to counter apps owned by foreign companies in adversarial countries.

Raimondo said she supported a bipartisan bill, the RESTRICT Act, introduced by Sen. Bill Clinton, in testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee. Mark Warner, D-Va., and John Thune, R-S.D., also drafted legislation that Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is drafting called the Guard Act.

Raimondo added: 'I want to be able to live in a place where people come together,' he said, adding: ''It is a privilege for me to be here.

Tik Tok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ByteDance, TikTok's China-based parent company, has reportedly denied that it can access data from the app's more than 150 million users in the U.S. and share it with the Chinese government upon request.

The company has also said it has asked policymakers for more than $1.5 billion to dissuade policymakers' concerns about the platform's potential use by China for spying.

In the Trump administration, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. began a security review of TikTok, which has continued in the Biden administration. In March, CFIUS informed TikTok that ByteDance's China-based owners would need to divest their stakes in the social media platform it may be banned.

CFIUS hasn't formally commented on its talks with TikTok, although the company has outlined some elements of those talks in correspondence with Congress and media briefings. According to a status report from the Congressional Research Service in August 2023, the parties continue to negotiate over a potential agreement on the matter.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are concerned about the possibility of accessing American TikTok users' data via ByteDance and the potential use of the platform as an outlet for CCP propaganda.

The President's RESTRICT Act would give the president, through the secretary of commerce, new authority to mitigate the threats posed by technology products from adversarial nations. The six countries covered by the bill are China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. The commerce secretary would have the authority to investigate and possibly ban controversial technology products from those countries.

The bill would apply to hardware, software and mobile app products covered by current authorities. It also expands authority to apply to products and services, financial technology, quantum communication and ecommerce that were not previously covered.

Currently, the RESTRICT Act has 25 bipartisan co-sponsors in the Senate, including 13 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Cantwell's Guard Act, which will be enacted next month, has not yet been formally introduced.