Asia Tech Wire (Apr 18) -- The U.S. House of Representatives is making a new effort to advance a bill that would require TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

The TikTok divestment bill would soon become law, according to a plan outlined Wednesday by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The new plan bundles the TikTok divestment bill with a series of fast-tracked bills that aim to provide new aid to Ukraine and Israel.

Sources said the new U.S. House bill would give ByteDance up to a year to divest TikTok, longer than the six months set out in a previous bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the package of bills on Saturday, and the Senate will likely vote soon once it passes.

Earlier, the Senate also discussed extending the TikTok divestiture deadline to one year, until after the 2024 presidential election.

TikTok said in a statement on Wednesday, "It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually.“

Once the TikTok divestment bill passes, the popular short video app will face a ban in the U.S. if it fails to divest from ByteDance by a deadline.