Rubio Praises Trump Administration Crackdown on Chinese Apps

Statement

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement after the Trump Administration signed an Executive Order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay, and WPS Office.

"I welcome President Trump's action to protect American users and U.S. national security by banning transactions with dangerous Chinese-owned software applications," Rubio said. "Going forward, it is clear that we must establish a framework of standards that must be met before a high-risk, foreign-based app is allowed to operate on American telecommunications networks and devices. Congress should move swiftly and build upon the President's action by passing my APP Act, which would adopt a more expansive approach to protecting Americans' user data and our security."

President Trump's Executive Order continues a series of aggressive steps advocated by Rubio to protect Americans families and our national security from the Chinese Communist Party.

Rubio was among the first lawmakers to warn of the danger posed by Chinese applications like TikTok. In October 2019, he requested that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) launch a full review of the national security implications of TikTok's acquisition of Musical.ly.

In September 2020, Rubio highlighted the threat posed by Tencent QQ and urged the Administration to take action.

A month later, Rubio introduced the Adversarial Platform Prevention (APP) Act, legislation that would establish a set of data protection and censorship related standards and restrictions that must be met by high-risk foreign software, like Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat, in order to legally operate in the United States.

The APP Act comes after Rubio announced in an op-ed that he would introduce legislation and called on policy makers to "adopt a more expansive approach to protecting data and our national security." The bill would require a warning label, annual public disclosures, localization requirements for U.S. data, and would remove Section 230 protections for covered high-risk foreign software. A one-pager of the legislation is available here and the text is available here.

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