Donald Trump’s bid to force TikTok sale follows well-trod legal path

President Donald Trump’s push for the sale of TikTok to a US company marks a major escalation in his battle to keep data on American citizens out of Chinese hands and a move that, if successful, would be nearly impossible to overturn under US law.

Trump’s demand has set off a geopolitical tug-of-war, but it has ample precedent. The administration has required at least three previous Chinese investments in US companies to be unwound on national security grounds after they closed. Each involved data security.

Those decisions followed investigations by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or Cfius, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews acquisitions of American businesses by overseas investors and can recommend the president block and unwind deals to protect national security.