Senator Sends Biden Letter Warning About Dangers of Chinese Retail App Temu
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sent a letter to President Joe Biden April 15 regarding the “urgent threat” posed by the Chinese retail application Temu, an app that has been seeking to nudge its way into a market still dominated by Amazon.
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The app undercuts American competitors by selling goods “contaminated with forced labor” at deep discounts, and it does so while harvesting vast amounts of American consumers’ personal data because it can access “everything on your phone,” he said.
Americans’ use of Temu has “skyrocketed” since the app launched in 2022, already rivaling eBay in online sales, Cotton said. It’s done so in part by selling its goods, which are often counterfeit, at extremely low costs, he said.
The app can sell its products so cheaply because it's stealing intellectual property from competitors such as Amazon, receiving subsidies from the Chinese government and, likely, relying on slave labor, Cotton said.
He said that Temu also harvests “vast amounts” of its users’ personal information, to the extent that it “may be even more dangerous than TikTok.” The senator noted that Google Play removed Temu’s parent company’s app from its store after it discovered the app had malware that allowed it to access “everything from biometrics to information about Wi-Fi networks.”
“As with TikTok and other invasive Chinese apps, Temu has no place in America,” Cotton said.
He asked the president to investigate Temu and to seek legislation “to protect Americans from this dangerous Chinese application.”
The senator also urged Biden to end the de minimis loophole for China “and other American adversaries.”