#

Gov. Kelly Ayotte wants answers about the state officials who invited a Chinese beverage company to set up shop in Nashua, ordering the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office to conduct a review.

Attorney General John Formella confirmed on Friday that a review of Nongfu Spring is now on tap.

“The governor has directed the DOJ to look into the facts and circumstances surrounding this purchase, with a specific focus on any involvement by state and local officials and what can be done to remedy any process failures and enhance reviews of these types of purchases going forward. We will report our findings to the governor upon the conclusion of our review,” Formella told NHJournal. 

Nongfu, owned by China’s top billionaire Zhong Shanshan, quietly bought a commercial property in Nashua for $67 million earlier this year, though the property was valued at around $15 million. After months of speculation about the deal, Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess said it was brokered under an economic development initiative championed by Gov. Chris Sununu’s administration. 

“If you have problems with this, you’re in the wrong place. This was initiated and pursued by Concord. We are kind of just spectators to the whole thing,” Donchess said.

Tensions have been mounting in Nashua for months as concerns have grown over Nongfu Spring’s acquisition of the 330,000-square-foot industrial site and its plans to draw water from the city’s main supply system.

In February, Nongfu Spring, China’s largest packaged‑water producer, quietly bought a long-vacant warehouse at 80 Northwest Boulevard—a site valued at $15 million according to public records—triggering alarm over the staggering $67 million price tag and strategic location.

At a recent public meeting, the city’s Board of Aldermen room was packed. One resident voiced the sentiment, echoing the room: “Look at us… still here, still freaked out by this.”

Concerns were amplified by the building’s proximity to several defense-related installations—New Boston Space Force Station, Hanscom Air Force Base, Pease Air National Guard Base, and key transportation hubs including airports and naval facilities.

Ayotte’s decision to bring in the attorney general echoes her previous statements calling for heightened scrutiny. “We’re always concerned when the Communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party, or anyone associated with that party buys land in New Hampshire,” she said, questioning the inflated purchase price and demanding transparency on the company’s intentions.

Ayotte is not alone. Three Republican Executive Councilors — Joe Kenney, John Stephen, and Dave Wheeler — have written BEA Commissioner Taylor Caswell asking for information about the role his agency played in promoting the purchase.

“Our constituents have expressed concerns about the transparency and oversight of the Nongfu Spring purchase in Nashua, particularly regarding who was informed, when, and the extent of the Department of Business and Economic Affairs’ (BEA) involvement,” they wrote.

Among their questions:

• Did the BEA actively recruit the company to relocate or establish operations in New Hampshire? If so, when did those efforts begin, and who initiated contact?
• What commitments, if any, has the company made regarding job retention or creation in Nashua, and when were these commitments communicated to the BEA?

State Senate Majority Leader Regina Birdsell—spearheading legislation to ban land purchases by entities from countries deemed adversarial, including China—pointed to the Nashua deal as a cautionary example.

At the federal level, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander requested a retrospective review of Nongfu Spring’s purchase by CFIUS, expressing unease over potential threats posed by a foreign adversary acquiring land near critical infrastructure.

Rumors swirled that Nongfu might attempt to buy or control Pennichuck Water Corporation, Nashua’s semi-private water utility. But Pennichuck officials have pushed back forcefully.

CEO John Boisvert and Board Chair C. George Bower emphasized that Pennichuck is not for sale, and no water rights or land have been, or will be, transferred. Bower reiterated that Nongfu would be treated as a typical industrial customer.

Donchess insists the city had no hand in facilitating the deal and only became aware of it when Nongfu’s application for a building permit emerged, which was later withdrawn in late May. He urged residents to direct their inquiries to the state level, particularly the Department of Business and Economic Affairs.

The debate has exposed a growing unease about foreign land ownership near sensitive sites, especially when tied to national security and critical resources like water.

Lily Tang Williams, a Republican challenging Goodlander in the 2026 congressional race and a former Chinese citizen, voiced her alarm. “Why do we even sell our natural resources like water to our biggest adversary?”

State Sen. Kevin Avard represents Nashua and has spoken out on the purchase.

“I want to thank my fellow Nashua resident, Gov. Ayotte, for taking such decisive action on this important issue for our city,” Avard said.

“Since hearing about this potential sale, I have been on the front lines calling for an in-depth review. There are far too many questions about this sale that need to be answered, and getting the Attorney General’s Office involved is an important step. Our neighbors have justifiable concerns that are simply not being addressed by the local government who have tried to pass the buck at every opportunity. Gov. Ayotte’s measured action today shows once again that she is listening to the people and doing what is best to protect our communities.”

There never was and never will be a plan to sell Nashua’s water company to a Chinese beverage company, Mayor Jim Donchess said Tuesday night.

“I think you’ve been told things that aren’t true,” Donchess said.

People from outside the city crowded into the Gate City’s Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday, stirred up by politicians like GOP congressional candidate Lily Tang Williams and U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH02), who have been sounding alarms about Nongfu Spring.

Nongfu is China’s largest private beverage company and paid $67 million for a commercial property in the city earlier this year. Much has been made about the seemingly secretive nature of the purchase. But Donchess labeled those concerns fake news. Nongfu was openly invited into New Hampshire by Gov. Chris Sununu’s administration as part of an economic development initiative, the Democratic mayor said.

Packed Nashua Board of Aldermen meeting to discuss land purchase by major Chinese company on August 12, 2025

“If you have a problem with this, you’re in the wrong place. This was initiated and pursued by Concord. We are kind of just spectators to the whole thing,” Donchess told the crowd.

Nashua’s water utility, Pennichuck Water, is a company owned by the city. Pennichuck CEO John Boisvert said everyone in Nashua would know if there was ever a sale in the works, but there isn’t, he said.

“We are not for sale, and you all would know it if we were,” Boisvert said. 

Alderman Michael O’Brien, a retired city firefighter, called the Nongfu rumors a fire they didn’t start.

“An arson, if you will,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien was one of the city officials involved in the decade-long fight by the city to buy Pennichuck. At the time, Nashua wanted to prevent a foreign company from buying the local utility. Donchess said given the history, no one in the city government would approve any sale.

“The City of Nashua spent a lot of money, a lot of effort, and a long legal struggle to make sure a French company didn’t buy the water company,” Donchess said.

Nongfu was enticed to set up shop in Nashua by state officials, Donchess said. The company was already looking to expand into the United States and had narrowed its choices down to Nashua or a site in Maryland.

The company chose Nashua on the expectation that it would create hundreds of jobs in the city by opening a bottling plant. But rumors swirled for months that the city was selling Pennichuck, or selling water rights, or selling Pennichuck land to Nongfu. All are complete fabrications, Donchess said.

“Politicians are trying to get you upset … We understand that you may have concerns about this. We don’t really control any of this,” Donchess said. “You may be frustrated and angry, but (Nashua officials) are not the people you should be angry with.”

The state government is in control of nearly every aspect of Nongfu’s start-up. Under state law, Pennichuck is required to sell water to any customer, including foreign-owned companies. The Public Utilities Commission sets the price for the water. Additionally, the Public Utilities Commission would ultimately be able to veto the sale of any assets, like Pennichuck’s water rights or land.

Public comment for the meeting was scheduled to take place later in the meeting. Other Aldermen expressed frustration with the Nongfu misinformation coming from outside the city.

But some of the rumors may be coming from closer to home. Alderman Melbourne Moran blamed outside politicians for ginning up fear about the city selling the utility, while at the same time saying people should be afraid of large corporations poisoning the water supply.

“It’s reasonable to assume that a billionaire or a multinational corporation would poison the people of the city. The people are right to be concerned,” Moran said. 

Moran went on to say that the United States would not take the poisoning of Nashua by a Chinese beverage company lightly.

“We would crush them in a war like that,” Moran said.

The hottest question in Nashua is why Chinese beverage giant Nongfu Spring spent $67 million to buy an industrial building in the Gate City valued at a quarter of that amount. It’s going to be front and center at the Nashua Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday night.

For months, speculation has swirled around the motivations behind Zhong Shanshan’s decision to purchase the property and buy up millions of gallons of water from the city’s supply. Zhong, the richest man in China with a net worth of around $60 billion, operates his business under the scrutiny of the Chinese Communist Party.

Concerns surround the building’s proximity to area military installations — the New Boston Space Force Station is just 20 minutes away — as well as defense contractors and vital infrastructure. It’s also in the flight path of the Nashua Airport.

All of that has added to the angst of Granite Staters concerned about growing Chinese influence in the U.S. It’s also sparked a flurry of national media attention. One of the people who’s been waving the red flag is former Chinese citizen Lily Tang Williams, who is running to represent Nashua in the U.S. Congress and plans to attend Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting.

“I lived under the regime for 24 years,” Williams told radio host Jack Heath Monday. “I’m very aware of the ambitions of China’s leader, Xi Jinping. He has a dream for China, which is to overtake the United States by 2049 and become the dominant power. This is his long-term goal and China is our biggest adversary country.”

That is why Williams asks, “Why do we even sell our natural resources like water to our biggest adversary?”

Nongfu purchased the 330,000-square-foot property at 80 Northwest Boulevard in February. The property had last been used by an educational supply company. At the time of the sale, the name of the buyer was not disclosed.

Nongfu sells bottled water, tea, juices, and other drinks. It was one of the first private beverage companies to emerge in China in the 1990s and helped make Zhong China’s richest man.

When Williams, who is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D),  first began talking about the Nongfu Spring purchase, she was largely ignored. But in a sign of the political potency of the issue, last week Goodlander sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in his capacity as Chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) calling for a retroactive review of the $67 million purchase.

“Anytime we see a major acquisition of important real estate by a foreign adversary or competitor near sensitive American facilities, whether it be farm land, water infrastructure, or land near our military installations, we must investigate that thoroughly to understand if there is a threat posed to our communities, our economy, or our military,” Goodlander said in a statement.

What has some local residents worried is the fact that the Northwest Boulevard property is adjacent to Pennichuck Pond, one of many ponds in the Pennichuck water system that serves as the main source of water for Nashua.

Nashua’s water supply is managed by the Pennichuck Corporation, a semi-private water company controlled by the city. Nashua purchased Pennichuck in 2012 in a unique $200 million deal that left the corporate structure in place but positioned the city as the sole shareholder.

While some have expressed concerns that Nongfu planned to buy out Pennichuck and take over the water company, that won’t happen. Pennichuck Board Chair C. George Bower told NHJournal that Nongfu isn’t getting anything but water from Pennichuck, and it will be treated like any other commercial water customer.

“There is zero plan to sell the company, there is zero plan to sell any land. We have no land to sell,” Bower said.

Zhong’s relationship with the CCP, his company’s less-than-stellar environmental history, and the apparent secrecy surrounding the Nashua plant prompted Gov. Kelly Ayotte to say she would be watching the deal to make sure Nongfu remains a Pennichuck customer and not an owner.

“It’s critical that we safeguard New Hampshire from foreign adversaries like China. We need to ensure we aren’t allowing any national security threat to take root in our state,” Ayotte said in June.

The purchase was also part of the motivation behind legislation passed this summer to ban people from hostile foreign nations like China, Iran, and Russia from buying property in New Hampshire.

“I’m very concerned, especially when you look at what’s happening to our agricultural land and agricultural land near military bases,” said Sen. Regina Birdsell (R-Hampstead), the lead sponsor of the new law.

Pennichuck has the capacity to produce up to 35 million gallons per day, Bower said, and has plenty of capacity for Nongfu’s planned operations. Any costs associated with hooking Nongfu up to Pennichuck’s water system, like adding new water lines, will be borne by Nongfu. Pennichuck already supplies water for the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Merrimack, which Belgian beverage conglomerate InBev owns.

Republican state Sen. Kevin Avard, who represents Nashua, recently wrote in NHJournal that he’s not going to let the issue fade away.

“The fight is far from over. Nashua’s water and land belong to the people of New Hampshire — not to a foreign regime with a track record of espionage and exploitation. We must stay vigilant. No more backroom deals. No more foreign land grabs. No more gambling with our water supply and national security.”

Fears that Chinese billionaire Zhong Shanshan planned to buy his way into controlling Nashua’s water supply are giving way to tentative relief, with officials keeping a wary eye on a deal.

The good news, says Pennichuck Water, is that the potential deal with Zhong’s Nongfu Spring could ultimately lower residential water bills.

But state and local officials are less than thrilled that the international customer is based in China, which has an adversarial relationship with the U.S., and where companies are under the thumb of the Communist regime.

In February, Nongfu Spring secretly bought a $67 million industrial property in Nashua close to the Pennichuck Pond watershed, sparking concern about the future of Pennichuck Water, the utility owned by the City of Nashua. But C. George Bower, chairman of Pennichuck’s board of directors, told NHJournal there is no plan to sell Zhong anything but water.

“There is zero plan to sell the company, there is zero plan to sell any land. We have no land to sell,” Bower said.

Zhong’s close ties to the authoritarian Chinese Communist government, his company’s less-than-stellar environmental record, and the secrecy surrounding the Nashua plant generated alarm throughout the state. The company declined to respond to questions from NH Journal about the unusual property purchase or its plans in Nashua.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte told NHJournal that she would be watching the deal to make sure Nongfu remains a Pennichuck customer and not a Pennichuck owner.

“It’s critical that we safeguard New Hampshire from foreign adversaries like China. We need to ensure we aren’t allowing any national security threat to take root in our state,” Ayotte said.

According to Forbes, Zhong is worth $58 billion, making him the wealthiest man in China. In addition to owning Nongfu Spring, China’s biggest maker of bottled water, he also controls Wantai Biological, which makes rapid diagnostic tests for infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

Nongfu and Pennichuck are in the preliminary stages of deal negotiations, Bower said, but just for water. Zhong wants up to two million gallons a day for his planned beverage plant at his new 80 Northwest Blvd. property. That’s good news for Pennichuck, its owners, and its customers, Bower said. 

Pennichuck has the capacity to produce up to 35 million gallons per day, Bower said, more than enough to accommodate Nongfu’s planned operations. Any costs associated with hooking Nongfu up to Pennichuck’s water system, like adding new water lines, would be borne by the company.

A large-scale, industrial customer like Nongfu would lock into a contract that guarantees a set amount of water per month for the customer. Bower said such deals also require the customer to pay for all the water, whether they use it or not, giving Pennichuck a consistent, new revenue source.

It gets better for Pennichuck. As part of its conservation efforts, Pennichuck charges commercial and industrial customers on a rising scale, meaning the more water they buy, the higher the rate goes. Adding Nongfu as a customer could help drive down costs for Pennichuck and everyone in the Pennichuck system.

“We have fixed costs and variable costs, and a contract like this brings in an ongoing revenue stream that could help us control rates,” Bower said.

That means Pennichuck’s thousands of residential water customers throughout southern New Hampshire could end up paying less for their drinking water, Bower said.

Adding Nongfu to the system is the same as adding any other commercial or industrial customer, Bower insisted. Pennichuck already supplies water for the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Merrimack, which Belgian beverage conglomerate InBev owns.

Granite Staters concerned by a Chinese billionaire buying a large facility near Nashua’s water supply say the issue isn’t xenophobia. Many international businesses are active in New Hampshire. Instead, it’s the specific threat posed by China.

“Water is one of our most vital resources – to have a business, backed by the CCP, accessing water in our backyard is alarming,” said former state Rep. Randy Whitehead. “City officials and the Pennichuck Corporation need to come clean and provide some answers about this deal.”

Sen. Regina Birdsell (R-Hampstead) has proposed legislation to stop Chinese companies from owning land near sensitive military sites in the state.

“Whether it’s flying spy balloons across our country or scooping up critical plots of U.S. real estate, China has stepped up its efforts to spy on our country,” Birdsell said when she proposed the legislation. “Other hostile nations, such as Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, could try the same surveillance tactics unless we do something to stop them. Totalitarian nations do not see any difference between one of their citizens’ companies and the government itself.”

The prospect that Pennichuck could be bought by a foreign individual or entity is alarming, and the reason that the City of Nashua now owns the utility. 

“When the city bought Pennichuck, it really did to secure the water supply,” Bower said.

Nashua waged a decade-long battle to buy Pennichuck, closing the $200 million deal in 2012. The city took action after watching the old owners of Pennichuck risk the future security of the region’s water supply. The former owners sold off wetlands to commercial developers and were even considering a purchase offer from a French company when Nashua stepped in. Today, Pennichuck continues to operate as a for-profit utility corporation, but it reports to a single shareholder, the City of Nashua. 

China’s largest beverage company, Nongfu Spring, is setting up operations in Nashua after spending $67 million on an industrial building.

But the property’s location, adjacent to the Pennichuck watershed area that supplies drinking water for the city, raises questions about where Nongfu will get its H2O.

Pennichuck Pond

Recent developments have sparked public concern about the potential sale of Nashua’s water resources to a foreign entity. A significant real estate transaction and subsequent hiring activities have brought those issues to the forefront, prompting questions about the future of the city’s water supply.

According to online records, in February 2025, STAG Industrial sold a 337,391-square-foot industrial property at 80 Northwest Boulevard in Nashua for a staggering $67 million, despite online assessments valuing the property at approximately $15 million. The buyer was not officially disclosed, leading to speculation about foreign involvement. However, recent job postings on LinkedIn indicate that Nongfu Spring, a major Chinese bottled water company, is actively hiring for positions at that location.

Nongfu sells bottled water, tea, juices, and other drinks. It was one of the first private beverage companies to emerge in China in the 1990s and helped make its owner, Zhong Shanshan, the richest man in China with a net worth of around $65 billion. 

Zhong and Nongfu came under fire last year in China when nationalist activists there deemed the billionaire was not patriotic enough. It’s not clear how much the boycott was the work of so-called nationalists or part of a pressure campaign brought by the authoritarian government against Zhong. However, it’s well known that China’s Communist Party (CCP) exerts a strong influence over businesses operating within the country, both domestically and foreign. 

That’s one reason state Senate Majority Leader Regina Birdsell (R-Hampstead) has proposed legislation to prevent agents of the Chinese government from buying and owning land near sensitive military locations in the state.

The concern in the Gate City isn’t war fighters, but water.

Across the road from Nongfu’s new beverage plant is the Pennichuck Pond, one of many ponds in the Pennichuck water system that serves as Nashua’s main water source. 

Nashua’s water supply is managed by the Pennichuck Corporation, a semi-private water company controlled by the city. Nashua purchased Pennichuck in 2012 in a unique $200 million deal that left the corporate structure in place but positioned the city as the sole shareholder. 

The deal took 10 years and multiple trips to court to go through. The push to buy Pennichuck started in the early 2000s when it was learned that a French company planned to buy a controlling interest in the water supplier. City leaders acted to keep local control of the water. 

But prior to the possible foreign owner controversy, city leaders were unhappy with Pennichuck’s management, which had been selling off hundreds of acres of land to developers. The purchase was also a way for Nashua to keep Pennichuck’s land for water use, and not for building.

The upcoming Pennichuck Board of Directors meeting on May 21, 2025, has locals wondering if they will discuss and vote on any measures related to Pennichuck Pond, the water supply, and any deals related to these recent transactions. Current Board Chair C. George Bower did not respond to a request for comment about the upcoming meeting.

Pennichuck is based in Nashua and supplies water to communities throughout southern New Hampshire. Pennichuck serves approximately 40,000 customers using water from the Pennichuck watershed and the Merrimack River. It generates more than $50 million a year in revenue against $40 to $45 million in expenses.

New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella says he believes the TikTok app is hurting children and teens and adding fuel to the nation’s youth mental health crisis. Now he has joined a national effort by his fellow attorneys general demanding more transparency from a company known for its ties to China’s communist regime.

Last December, Gov. Chris Sununu signed an executive order banning TikTok from state-issued smartphones.

On Monday, Formella joined 46 other state attorneys general in asking a Tennessee judge to order the company to open up its internal communications for review. 

“Our youth spend hours on social media platforms each day. We already know that on TikTok they are being exposed to harmful content including, but certainly not limited to, potentially deadly viral challenges, bullying, and graphic content showcasing sexual images and drug use,” Formella said. 

The Tennessee lawsuit has become a national fight as evidence mounts that too many children and teens are ending up with mental health disorders because of social media addictions enabled by the tech giants. Parents and communities need to act to protect children, and states need to get involved, too, according to Formella.

Attorney General John Formella

“As we work to help parents better protect their children online, we must be able to thoroughly investigate and understand the methods and techniques utilized by TikTok to boost young user engagement, including how the company specifically works to increase the duration of time spent on the platform as well as the frequency of engagement with the platform,” he said.

The attorneys general want to review internal TikTok communications to see if the company engaged in deceptive, unfair, and unconscionable conduct that harmed the mental health of TikTok users, particularly children and teens. The company has been stalling, handing over useless data and even deleting records, according to claims made in court documents.

The amicus brief signed by Formella and his counterparts claims TikTok employees use a messaging system called Lark for internal communications, and that the employees have the app set to erase the content.

“TikTok has flouted its duty to preserve communications and provide them in an unusable format. They have instead continued to allow employees to send auto-deleting messages over the Lark platform after the start of the investigation and have provided messages to the states in a format that is difficult to use and navigate,” according to Formella’s statement.

 Congress could move this week to give President Joe Biden the authority to institute a national ban on the app, which is considered a national security threat.

“TikTok is the Chinese Communist Party’s backdoor into American phones,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chair who is behind the law authorizing Biden to ban apps and software nationally.

TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which has ties to China’s Communist government. There are concerns about TikTok gathering intelligence data on Americans, as well as the app giving an authoritarian and hostile China the ability to easily disseminate misinformation.

FBI Director Christopher Wray considers the app a potential threat.

“All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us,” Wray said.

Formella is focusing on the impact TikTok is having on teens and preteens, especially girls. 

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released findings demonstrating a startling increase in challenges to youth mental health, youth experiences of violence, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among teenagers, especially teenage girls. This includes a finding that nearly one-third of teen girls seriously considered suicide in 2021, a nearly 60 percent increase from a decade prior,” Formella said in the statement.

A TikTok spokeswoman noted Congress passed a ban on the app from federal devices in December, dismissing it as “little more than political theater.”

“The swiftest and most thorough way to address any national security concerns about TikTok is for CFIUS to adopt the proposed agreement that we worked with them on for nearly two years. These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies, and we are well underway in implementing them to further secure our platform in the United States,” she said.

Some analysis finds TikTok is replacing Google as a top source for information, including news, among Gen Z consumers.

State employees won’t be able to use the video-sharing social media app TikTok now that Gov. Chris Sununu has signed an executive order outlawing the service from state-issued smartphones. 

“New Hampshire is joining the growing list of states that have banned TikTok and other Chinese companies from state government devices and networks. This move will help preserve the safety, security, and privacy of the citizens of New Hampshire,” Sununu said.

The order banning the tech, linked to the Chinese Communist Party, was signed on Wednesday.

Sununu’s decision is supported by House Speaker Sherm Packard (R-Londonderry) who told NHJournal, “There’s no way in hell TikTok should be on any state-owned device.”

Several states with Republican governors have banned the software from government-issued phones, including Maryland, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah. And Indiana is suing TikTok, claiming the app exposes children to harmful content.

TikTok is popular with teens and Gen Z, but it carries a known security risk. TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is required by Chinese law to make the app’s data available to the Chinese Communist Party.

This week Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) was successful in getting the Senate to pass a measure banning the app from federal government-issued phones and devices. 

Rubio says his Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) would protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia, and several other foreign countries of concern.

“This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” Rubio said in a statement. “We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.” 

Rubio’s bill now goes to the House of Representatives.

New Hampshire cannot ban the app from private users, but it can control what goes on to the phones it hands out to state employees. Individual New Hampshire state agencies are responsible for issuing iPhones to employees to use for state business purposes, but all the phones are controlled through the DoIT.

Denis Goulet, commissioner for the Department of Information Technology, said Thursday the state already prohibits the use of the app on the state-issued iPhones.

“We hadn’t been allowing TikTok on our state devices anyway,” Goulet said.

Goulet said employees already agree not to use TikTok as part of the agreement when they are issued their phones. All non-state business is already banned. “Stuff that is clearly non-business, or things that are inappropriate, or things that are a risk are proscribed,” Goulet noted.

Asked about Sununu’s move, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne simply replied, “I am going to miss the daily dance videos from the Insurance Department.”