Congressional China hawks said Monday that they’re planning to scrutinize President Donald Trump’s promised deal to keep TikTok alive, insisting his “framework” for an agreement with China has to obey last year’s law to pry the app out of Chinese control.
“Any agreement must comply with the historic bipartisan law passed last year to protect the American people, including the complete divestment of ByteDance control and a fully decoupled algorithm,” a spokesperson for the House China Committee said.
On Monday, President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent teased a “framework” for TikTok’s divestment from Beijing-based parent company ByteDance — though Bessent said Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would have to agree to terms during a Friday phone call.
A White House official familiar with the negotiations told POLITICO that the deal would reduce ByteDance’s ownership to less than 20 percent, which would comply with the law. The official also said it would completely remove the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to access the user data of American citizens.
“I look forward to reviewing it,” House China Chair John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) told POLITICO on Monday. “We want to have an opportunity to read it, understand it, make sure it’s preserved for Americans under the law … I trust they’re negotiating a good solution.”
On Capitol Hill, where even hawks have largely dodged the issue of what happens after a Trump-negotiated deal, a few took a seemingly hard line.
“It’s a good idea that Congress passed a law that it’s either going to be done away with in the United States, or it’s going to be owned by an American company,” Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told POLITICO. “I don’t know what the framework says — but anything short of that, the President would be violating congressional intent.”
Other senior lawmakers, however, are taking a more cautious approach.
“I’ll just have to wait and see,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of GOP leadership. “It’s good if there’s a deal.”
“Good to get it resolved and it’s been too long,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said. “They are clearly a threat currently. The sooner we get this resolved, the better off we are.”
Left unsaid is what Congress would — or could — do if Trump strikes a deal in open defiance of the law they passed. Few have been willing to criticize the administration for multiple extensions for a sale, which Trump has continued to postpone outside of the legal authority envisioned in the law.
Trump sounded a positive note about the framework Monday.
“A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save,” Trump wrote in a post Monday on Truth Social. “They will be very happy!”
Like other hawkish Republicans, House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said he’d wait to see the terms of the deal.
“I look forward to seeing the specifics of the deal,” the Kentucky Republican said. “China remains a major adversary of the United States, and we must not allow entities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party to surveil and manipulate the American people.”
The office of Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not comment on the latest reports of a framework for a TikTok sale.
Sophia Cai and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
