Tiktok ban just the beginning, Pompeo says
China-linked software firms targeted
WASHINGTON • U.S. President Donald Trump will take action on Chinese software companies that are feeding data directly to the Beijing government, posing a risk to U.S. national security, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.
“President Trump has said ‘enough’ and we’re going to fix it and so he will take action in the coming days with respect to a broad array of national security risks that are presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party,” Pompeo said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.
The news comes after Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on Friday that he would issue an order for social media platform Tiktok to be banned in the United States as early as Saturday.
Over the last several months, U.S. officials have repeatedly said Tiktok under its current Chinese parent company, Beijing-based software firm Bytedance, poses a national risk because of the personal data it handles.
“They’re true privacy issues for the American
PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS SAID ‘ENOUGH’ AND WE’RE GOING TO FIX IT ... IN THE COMING DAYS.
people and for a long time, a long time, the United States just said ‘well goodness if we’re having fun with it, or if a company can make money off of it, we’re going to permit that to happen,’” Pompeo said.
In response, under a recent proposal, Bytedance is willing to divest the U.S. operations of Tiktok to Microsoft in a bid to make a deal with the White House, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday. That offer has gained some support from allies of the president, including Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
Graham said the “right answer” to address security concerns about Tiktok would be to “have an American company like Microsoft take over Tiktok. Win-win. Keeps competition alive and data out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, also called it a “win-win.”
Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, echoed Cornyn but added that “tight security measures need to be part of any deal in order to protect consumer data and ensure no foreign access.”
Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on Twitter “if the company & data can be purchased & secured by a trusted U.S. company that would be a positive & acceptable outcome.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told ABC on Sunday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States “agrees that Tiktok cannot stay in the current format because it risks sending back information on 100 million Americans.”