Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., hopes President Donald Trump and lawmakers can resolve the TikTok divestiture uncertainty amid the White House’s 75-day pause in enforcement of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’s requirement that ByteDance sell the platform (see 2501210070). “We’ve given every tool possible” to combat Chinese government influence over the app, including the divest-or-ban statute, Cantwell said on the Senate floor. “Now it’s time to get this into the hands of U.S. innovators and move forward.” She doesn’t “know that a joint venture with the Chinese is going to rectify” those concerns. “They can’t continue to own and influence this process,” Cantwell said. “But U.S. innovation and U.S. ownership can drive us forward, can drive a better experience for our young people” who use TikTok. She hailed “agentic AI” as helping consumers “control the algorithms that billionaires or foreign governments have been using to control us.” The technology will help people “take in massive amounts of information from the internet ... and then apply filters ... so that we only get the information that we want to see and not what somebody else wants to do with our information.”
The Chips and Science Act of 2022, which has successfully funded the launch of U.S. facilities where chips are made, and it's unlikely President Donald Trump will reverse its work, experts said Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Trump was sharply critical of the act as a presidential candidate, saying that subsidies were a bad idea (see 2412090046).
President Donald Trump directed DOJ Jan. 20 to hold off for 75 days on enforcing a law that called for China’s ByteDance to divest TikTok by Jan. 19 or face a ban of the popular social media application in the U.S.
President Donald Trump signed a host of executive orders Monday that could affect FCC policy going forward and have already led newly minted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to scrub the agency’s processes of references to diversity, equity and inclusion and scrap the FCC’s diversity committee. The executive orders include a pause on the TikTok divestiture rule, a freeze on new regulations, a return of the Schedule F rule making it easier to replace federal workers with political appointees, and policies requiring information sharing with the new Department of Government Efficiency. Another order issued Monday officially designated Carr as chairman.
Tencent's investment in Skydance Media should give the FCC pause, considering Tencent is a member of DOD's list of Chinese military companies operating in the U.S., the Center for American Rights said Tuesday. CAR petitioned the agency to put conditions related to Chinese control on any approval of Skydance's proposed purchase of Paramount Global (see 2412170038). CAR said the fact DOD considers a Skydance founding investor to be a “Chinese military company” should refute the FCC presumption that foreign-ownership interests of 5% or less aren't generally contrary to the public interest. It said the FCC could condition approval on New Paramount having board diversity through board members coming from different geographies, industries, backgrounds and political persuasions; its locating of executive and editorial staff in cities besides New York and Los Angeles; creation of an "independent, empowered, balanced ombudsman"; or committing to "an ideologically diverse hiring pipeline." Chicago-based CAR last fall filed news distortion complaints against CBS over the network's interview with Vice President/Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris (see 2410170051) and an equal-time complaint against NBC and its WNBC New York over Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live just prior to Election Day (see 2411050049).
The National Chamber of the Textile Industry of Mexico and the U.S.-based National Council of Textile Organizations sent a Jan. 13 joint letter to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum expressing their gratitude to the Mexican government's recent tariff changes for apparel goods.
The Trump administration will have the opportunity to pause or terminate Health and Human Services’ proposal to modify the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule, compliance attorneys said Monday.
The U.S. government stressed that it plans to continue an ongoing legal battle to enforce the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements in the Corporate Transparency Act, which a federal court paused last month under a nationwide injunction (see 2412270046 and 2412300031)
Participation in BEAD bidding could vary widely among states, officials at broadband trade groups, state telecommunications organizations and other entities tell us. For example, some states, including Pennsylvania, could face low participation rates owing to onerous bidder requirements. In other instances, local rules facilitate BEAD participation.
The Border Trade Alliance released a Dec. 30 letter it sent to the Mexican Embassy asking that nation to pause its regulatory changes that end tariff-free treatment of apparel and textile home goods that are imported into Mexico but destined for U.S. consumers. The same change also increased the tariffs on 121 apparel goods from China to 35% (see 2412240009).