In 2020, the Trump administration accepted the unanimous determination by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) that TikTok is spyware disguised as entertainment and propaganda masquerading as news — an addictive, highly manipulative platform ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Congress recognized this danger and, in 2024, passed bipartisan legislation requiring TikTok to be sold to American owners or banned outright. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court upheld the law. The mandate could not have been clearer: divestiture or ban. There is no third option.
Yet the Trump administration now offers a "framework deal" that falls short of what the law requires. Instead of a clean break, the proposal would allow ByteDance to retain a board seat while leasing its algorithm to a group of American investors. This may sound like a compromise, but it is in fact a capitulation. Licensing is not ownership and monitoring is not control. As long as ByteDance retains the ability to alter the algorithm from Beijing, the CCP will preserve one of its most powerful tools for influencing American minds and waging psychological warfare against the West. The administration implicitly concedes the deal’s weakness by touting Oracle’s ability to "fully inspect" the algorithm. What the administration cannot quite bring itself to say is that those inspections will be searching for evidence of ByteDance’s ongoing manipulation of the platform.
TRUMP, BESSENT CAN LEVERAGE TIKTOK NEGOTIATIONS TO COUNTER CHINA'S RARE EARTH DOMINANCE
The problem is not theoretical. We have already seen how TikTok floods American feeds with antisemitic propaganda in the wake of terror attacks and the crass celebration of political violence after the assassinations of Charlie Kirk and UnitedHealthCare President Brian Thompson. While fanning the flames of domestic American conflict, TikTok buries any content critical of China: e.g., the Uyghur genocide, the crackdown in Hong Kong and the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Unsurprisingly, the algorithm that serves such a toxic cocktail of content in the United States is banned domestically within China. This is the very essence of information warfare. To allow China to keep a hand on the levers of TikTok’s algorithm is to allow the CCP to continue shaping what our children watch and believe.
If Beijing retains control of TikTok in a crisis, it could funnel chaos to the phones of roughly half the American population. Imagine if China goes to war with Taiwan, then floods TikTok with pro-CCP messages, spreads disinformation about the conflict and boosts a public opinion campaign that America should stay out and not do anything to help Taipei. The CCP is counting on American leaders ignoring this possibility.
Equally troubling is the precedent. Congress spoke with one voice in mandating divestiture. The courts affirmed it. Yet instead of carrying out the law as written, the administration is attempting to redefine "divestiture" into something far weaker — a mere cosmetic restructuring that leaves the core of TikTok’s technology under Chinese control. This deal is not enforcing the law; it is evading the law.
Nor should we overlook the larger strategic cost of embracing appeasement dressed up as pragmatism. By blessing this structure, Washington signals that American national security can be negotiated down to half-measures and loopholes, much like the agreement to allow Nvidia chip sales so long as Uncle Sam gets his 15 percent cut. Beijing understands this game well. Every inch of ground we concede on TikTok will only embolden them to make even more outlandish demands in trade negotiations and military diplomacy. Americans who placed their trust in conservatives to confront the CCP should be alarmed and disappointed.
The truth is that this deal does not honor the law and it does not protect the American people. It preserves China’s influence, undermines Congress’s authority and erodes the very principle of sovereignty that conservatives have long championed. We would never have permitted the Soviet Union to script our nightly news broadcasts during the Cold War. Why would we allow the CCP to manipulate the screens in our children’s hands today?
The time for hedging has passed. Conservatives in Congress must not sit silently by while this deal is rammed through under the guise of compliance with the law. Because TikTok is a national security threat, we must demand full divestiture — no minority stakes, no algorithm leases, no fig leaves. Anything less is a betrayal of the law and an overly generous concession to the CCP.
Michael Sobolik is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute specializing in United States-China relations.