Beginning in the 19th century, snake oil salesmen falsely claimed their elixirs and tonics could treat a wide array of ailments. In the 21st century, a group of senators are hawking a bill they assert can cure the oh-so-many maladies caused by using the social media app, TikTok. Just like snake oil salesmen of the past, these Senators may talk a good game, but their antidote is far worse than any purported affliction.
To address our nation’s hysteria over dance videos, more than twenty Senators, both Republican and Democrat, support the RESTRICT Act. They tell us that this bill will help rein in the dastardly threat that comes from the Chinese government supposedly spying on silly videos made by American teenagers. Instead, it bestows an astonishing amount of power to the Executive branch in a manner that the Chinese Communist Party would approve of. As Tucker Carlson correctly observed, “this is not an effort to push back against China. It’s part of a strategy to make America much more like China.”
The RESTRICT Act eschews almost all notions of checks and balances by granting a vast amount of power to the Executive branch to intervene in all kinds of economic transactions. It would effectively allow the Secretary of Commerce to become the Commissar of Commerce.
The bill’s application is far from limited to Tiktok or other internet-based companies. The third section of the bill would enable the Secretary of Commerce to investigate any business that is in any way subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary to determine if its transactions “pose an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”
Though the bill already designates China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba as foreign adversaries, the RESTRICT Act also empowers the Secretary of Commerce to unilaterally add any other country to this official enemies list.