Donald Trump’s initial 75-day delay against enforcement of the TikTok ban law would’ve expired this weekend, but on Friday, he announced on Truth Social that “I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.”
This week, Trump announced new taxes on products coming into the US, including a 34 percent tariff rate against China. He has said that he would consider lowering that rate in exchange for China agreeing to a TikTok deal, but with the deadline closing in, it’s Trump who decided to extend the delay instead of having TikTok’s app shut down again.
Despite several publicly announced bids to buy TikTok, its Chinese owner, ByteDance, has shown no inclination to sell or reduce its stake in the company as required by the law passed last year. After the delay was announced, ByteDance commented publicly on the deal talks for the first time, without specifying what “key matters” needed to be resolved before a potential solution could be reached.
ByteDance has been in discussion with the U.S. Government regarding a potential solution for TikTok U.S. An agreement has not been executed. There are key matters to be resolved. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law.
Later on Friday, the Associated Press cited anonymous sources in a report saying White House sources had believed they were nearing a deal this week, until the Chinese government said it wouldn’t approve the arrangement without negotiations about trade and tariffs.
At the moment, interested parties that have been reported include Oracle, Blackstone, Frank McCourt, Amazon, Applovin, and Perplexity, among others.
When the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act took effect just ahead of Trump’s inauguration, TikTok voluntarily turned its service off for a day. At the same time, Google, Apple, and others removed it and other ByteDance-owned apps from their stores as required.
After his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order telling the Attorney General and Department of Justice to “…take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act.” But with the law still on the books after the Supreme Court declined to delay it and with the risk of billions of dollars in penalties, the app took nearly a month to return to US app stores before they were apparently satisfied by the AG’s assurances.
Until we hear more about any potential deal that actually could be used to delay the law as it’s written, it’s probably a good idea to keep your TikTok app updated just in case its listings disappear again.
Trump:
My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days. We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!). This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security! We do not want TikTok to “go dark.” We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Update, April 4th: Added ByteDance statement and a report from the Associated Press.
