Trump, GOP China hawks at odds over TikTok ban

President Trump’s plan to save TikTok is putting him at a crossroads with some Republicans as questions mount over the legality of delaying a ban on the popular video-sharing app. 

Trump said over the weekend he plans to issue an executive order to extend the deadline for the ban on TikTok, which went into effect Sunday after its Chinese parent company ByteDance failed to divest from the app.  

Former President Biden said he wouldn't enforce the ban during the final days in the White House, but the app still shut down for more than 12 hours beginning Saturday night — then came back online Sunday following Trump’s announcement that he planned to delay the ban.

Some China hawks in Congress are already breaking from the newly inaugurated president on the issue, standing firm that the app should not be available in the U.S. without an official divestiture deal on the table.

“We commend Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for following the law and halting operations with ByteDance and TikTok, and we encourage other companies to do the same,” Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) wrote in a statement Sunday. “The law, after all, risks ruinous bankruptcy for any company who violates it.” 

If enforced, the law would impose hefty fines on app store providers, like Apple and Google, as well as cloud computing firm Oracle, which provides internet hosting services for TikTok. The companies could face some $850 billion in fines for continuing to make the app accessible to Americans. 

Cotton also suggested companies servicing TikTok could face “ruinous liability” from entities other than the Justice Department, such as state attorneys general and shareholders. 

“For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China,” Cotton and Ricketts added. 

Trump’s shifted plans on TikTok has created one of the earliest disagreements between the president and members of his party on a highly polarizing issue. In his first term, the president sometimes clashed with Republican defectors, whether it be in public or online spaces.   

The divest-or-ban law passed Congress with widespread bipartisan support last April, highlighting concerns on both sides of the aisle about China’s growing power.  

Given TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, the U.S. government has raised alarm that the Chinese government could access American user data or covertly manipulate content on the platform.  

Cotton made headlines last year when he aggressively pressed TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about his potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during a Senate hearing. Chew repeatedly said he is Singaporean and has never been affiliated with the CCP.  

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) also questioned the legality of a potential executive order delaying the ban Monday. 

“I'm not sure what the legal authority is for a president to issue an executive order down to a law that was just passed and upheld by the Supreme Court of United States,” Cramer told CNN’s Manu Raju, according to a post on the social platform X. 

The Supreme Court rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law Friday, finding it did not violate the First Amendment. 

“I've been concerned about the appropriate approach to separation of powers by all presidents,” Cramer added. 

The law gave ByteDance 270 days — until Jan. 19 — to divest from TikTok. However, it also allowed the president to issue a 90-day extension if the company is making progress toward a divestiture. 

It’s still unclear whether Trump’s executive order seeks to take advantage of this clause. 

“The statute itself does allow him to stay [the ban] or to give an extension. And if he’s working within that, then it certainly would be legal for him to do, as long as he’s within his parameters,” said Shubha Ghosh, a law professor at Syracuse University. 

To grant a 90-day extension under the law, the president is required to certify to Congress that a path to qualified divestiture has been identified and that there is evidence of “significant progress” toward such a divestiture. 

Trump has said he would like the U.S. to have 50 percent ownership of TikTok in a joint venture, though it remains to be seen whether this proposal would meet the law’s requirements for a qualified divestiture.  

Under the law, any sale must remove China's alleged control over the app and cannot maintain a relationship between TikTok’s U.S. operations and ByteDance. 

However, the president has a lot of discretion for making these determinations, noted Lily Li, a cybersecurity and data privacy lawyer. 

“I think the president is going to have a lot of action on China and in tariffs, and this could be used as a bargaining chip in those discussions,” Li said. 

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said Monday the law’s divestment requirement is “clear and unambiguous,” but deferred judgment to the president-elect.  

He touted Trump as “the right man to make the deal of the century and create a safer TikTok,” adding, “The time is now for ByteDance to come to the table and, if they do, I’m confident that President Trump will ensure TikTok is sold to a company the American people can trust.”  

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also seemed inclined to uphold the law around the ban Sunday and pushed aside the notion Trump would try to reverse it without a “true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership.”  

Meanwhile, some Republicans such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a close ally of Trump, seem more comfortable with a 90-day extension.  

Still, the Ohio Republican noted the law would have to be updated to keep TikTok online with anything less than a full sale.

“It seems to me, if you’re going to do something short of someone else purchasing TikTok and ByteDance no longer owning it, you’re going to have to have a change in the law,” Jordan said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union." 

“And if that’s what’s warranted, then I think the Congress will look at that with the leadership from President Trump,” he added.