Shortly after President Trump was inaugurated, I gave a presentation at the Special Competitive Studies Project on China. The President’s decision on TikTok, I argued, would be a bellwether for his broader approach towards China. “If we privilege political expediency and profit over our national security and our fundamental right to freedom of thought by allowing the CCP to retain its control over TikTok,” I argued, “I suspect we will see similar unwillingness to stand up to China in other domains.” In other words, if we failed to enforce our own law and kick the Chinese Communist Party out of TikTok, it’d likely be a sign that our broader approach towards China would be one of appeasement rather than one that reflected the President’s robust campaign promises to safeguard the American people from the CCP writ large.

Sadly, it seems that prediction is coming true, as you can read about further in Matt Pottinger’s featured piece on Trump’s latest chip policy and refusal to refer to China as an adversary in the latest National Security Strategy. This is problematic in three important respects. First, it suggests that business interests are being prioritized over our constitutional process. All three branches of government made their will known about the threat the CCP’s control of TikTok posed to the American public – Congress passed bipartisan legislation addressing TikTok, which was signed into law under the Biden administration and upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional. However, reporting suggests the new deal does not meet the statutory standards. Whereas the legislation requires American ownership, the new deal seems to see at least half of TikTok US remain under foreign entities. At the same time, reporting suggests the new deal merely licenses the algorithm rather than sells it. If true, the violation of this legislation by the executive branch undermines the balance of power within our system of government that our founders so carefully constructed and maintained.

Second, it suggests that the President’s many welcome references to maintaining U.S. sovereignty in his recently released National Security Strategy may amount to mere rhetoric. If we were truly concerned about our national sovereignty, we should be acting quickly to stop a foreign power clearly conducting information warfare against American citizens. The TikTok threat strikes at the central underpinning of our democratic system – that our government is directed by the American people thinking freely for themselves. True freedom of speech requires freedom of thought, but true freedom of thought presupposes access to information that isn’t being manipulated or processed for us by our foreign adversaries.

Third, it suggests the government is wildly disconnected from the American public. According to our most recent polling, even after word of a deal first came out, over 92 percent of Trump voters said they remained concerned about TikTok, with 66 percent wanting to see the full terms of any TikTok deal. This level of concern has been consistent this whole year – in February, our polling demonstrated that 88 percent of Americans were concerned about TikTok spreading misinformation, 84 percent about its excessive cultural influence, and 85 percent were concerned about Chinese ownership writ large.

The American people seem to fully appreciate the importance of the rule of law, U.S. sovereignty, and popular will. Considering these are three things the President successfully campaigned on, it is disappointing to see all three under attack in the recent announcements on TikTok.

-Carrie Filipetti, Executive Director of the Vandenberg Coalition

On November 6, 2025, President Donald J. Trump announced that Kazakhstan had agreed to join the Abraham Accords—a series of normalization agreements between Muslim-majority states and Israel that were brokered by President Trump during his first administration. Kazakhstan, a Muslim-majority, post-Soviet state, is the first country to join the agreements during President Trump’s second term in office. As the Trump administration considers additional countries to bring into the Abraham Accords, Kazakhstan serves as a helpful model: a country with preexisting diplomatic relations with Israel, a strategic location with critical resources, and an education system that promotes religious tolerance and multiculturalism towards Israel and the Jewish people. Read our latest primer about the importance of Kazakhstan joining the Abraham Accords here.