WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump indicated he would give TikTok more time to divest from its parent company if a deal to an American buyer can’t be facilitated by the latest deadline as the popular app still faces a ban that has been delayed since he retook office and put its future into question.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said that he would extend the 75-day deadline if there still isn’t a deal. Trump signed an executive order last month banning enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days, the second 75-day extension granted since Trump took office. The latest extension pushed the deadline for a deal to mid-June.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said. “TikTok is — it’s very interesting, but it’ll be protected. It’ll be very strongly protected. But if it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension, might not need it.”
The Chinese government’s approval for a sale has always been a major obstacle to any deal being reached but may be even harder to get after Washington and Beijing got into a quickly escalating trade war that has tariffs between the two countries well over 100% that has exacerbated tensions beyond economic issues.
Beijing has refused to budge despite appeals from the Trump administration to come to the negotiating table on trade in a development that could make it even harder to get approval on selling TikTok to an American buyer. But Trump said he was optimistic a deal will get done despite the tariffs.
“It’s a good thing for us. It’s a good thing for China. It’s going to be, I think, very good. But because of the fact that I’ve essentially cut off China right now with the tariffs that are so high that they’re not going to be able to do much business with the United States. But if we make a deal with China, I’m sure that’ll be a subject, and it’ll be a very easy subject to solve.”
Trump has been committed to keeping TikTok online and available in the U.S. since before taking office and has essentially guaranteed it will survive the congressionally mandated ban through a deal his administration would facilitate. But whether that deal can be found before extending deadlines run into legal issues remains a question overhanging the app’s future.
“The Justice Department has enormous discretion over enforcement, but at some point, they do have to do something. I don’t see how they could do this indefinitely,” said John Wihbey, an associate professor of media innovation at Northeastern University. “The bottom line is another extension makes sense, but ultimately, this has to be resolved because there’s a law in place that says it has to be resolved.”
Congress passed the bill forcing TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance by broad bipartisan margins that was quickly signed into law by former President Joe Biden and upheld by the Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling.
TikTok’s ties to China have been front and center for years as lawmakers debated what steps to take against the platform that has some 170 million active users in the U.S. and has become a cultural behemoth. Supporters of the ban said it posed a national security risk through a Chinese law that could compel it to hand over Americans’ data to China’s government.
TikTok has adamantly denied it has ever faced a request to turn over data and would not comply if it was but ran into a skeptical audience in lawmakers and national security officials.
The platform was fined $600 million on Friday for violating a European Union data privacy law after regulators said it had transferred personal data to China. TikTok denied providing data to Chinese authorities and is likely to appeal the ruling, but the incident still highlights the concerns that led to the ban in the U.S.
The White House is still optimistic it can find a buyer for TikTok and push a deal through with a long line of suitors ready to place bids on one of the world’s most powerful social media platforms. Amazon has submitted a bid to buy the entire company along with other suitors like Oracle, Blackstone and other private equity firms being tied to the discussions.
Even with interest from American companies and investors to take over at least part of the platform, there are still questions about its coveted algorithm that has sucked countless users into hours of scrolling on the app and whether it would be included in a deal. While removing the connection of the algorithm between TikTok and ByteDance would alleviate some of the national security concerns that prompted the ban, it also risks the app losing its popularity and massive user base if the experience deteriorated as a result.
“Can you guarantee the same degree of innovation and quality? They essentially have a mind-hack algorithm that’s pretty brilliant, but does that persist under an Oracle, Amazon, Goldman Sachs purchase? I don’t know,” Wihbey said.
