Treasury wants to boost foreign investment review powers, as Congress dissects Nippon, TikTok deals

abcnews.go.com:

U.S. Treasury wants to enhance the power of a little-known, secretive government committee to review deals made between U.S. firms and foreign investors

WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury wants to enhance the power of a little-known, secretive government committee to review deals made between U.S. firms and foreign investors.

This comes as high-profile deals involving foreign investment in the U.S. — like Chinese firm ByteDance’s ownership of popular social media app TikTok and Japanese firm Nippon Steel’s bid to purchase Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp. receive increased scrutiny by lawmakers and even President Joe Biden.

A new proposed rulemaking would strengthen powers for the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — known as CFIUS — which is tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns and holds power to force the company to divest ownership or change major parts of the firm.

The rulemaking — if finalized — would expand the committee's subpoena authority, allow the committee to request more information from parties to a proposed sale and expand circumstances when fines can be imposed and their size — from $250,000 to $5 million, where there are misstatements, omissions and failure to file mandatory declarations.

The proposed change comes as the convergence of national security concerns related to foreign investment have increased — as competition intensifies between the world's biggest powers and the U.S. focuses on growing its domestic supply chains.

President Joe Biden came out in opposition to the planned sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel of Japan, saying in March that the U.S. needs to “maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steelworkers.”