President Trump extended the TikTok US deadline for the sale of TikTok, giving the app 75 more days to remain available in the US. The original deadline was close to being met, but a deal to sell US operations to ByteDance, a Chinese company, stalled due to trade war issues and China’s reluctance to approve the sale.
TikTok US Sale Deadline Extension
Donald Trump has again extended a deadline for the sale of TikTokUS deadline . It will allow the video sharing app to remain available in the United States for another 75 days. The platform was hours away from a deadline to be sold by its Chinese owner or face a US ban. Mr. Trump said he did not want to go dark, as he put it. The deadline was initially extended in January. Our North America correspondent explained to me the thinking behind the extension.
Negotiations and Potential Deal
Well, the thinking is, you know, he needs extra time to complete this deal, which, according to reports, has been in the works for many weeks but was actually very close to being consummated by Wednesday. It calls for the US operations of TikTok US deadline to be spun off from the main Chinese parent ByteDance and for ByteDance to retain a minority stake on the order of about 20%.
Trade War Impact
But then came the trade war, the tariffs got in the way. Initially, the thinking on Trump’s part was that he could use tariffs against China as a cudgel, offering tariff relief in exchange for Beijing’s blessing of a deal. Uh, that is not quite how things ended up turning out as we’re seeing today. There’s now a move on China’s part to retaliate against the tariffs imposed by Trump—not to play ball.
Extension and User Reaction
I think, you know, it’s a little bit of a wait and see. We have 75 more days, and from the users’ perspective, they’re very happy to hear that that’s another two and a half months where they get to continue spending hours upon end, in some cases, on the app. There are 170 million American users on the app. Um, and I think from the perspective of negotiators within the Trump administration, it gives them extra time
Trump Administration’s Perspective
Obviously, they say that they were very close to a deal—that, in Trump’s words, they had made tremendous progress—but that this deal required more work. Really, what’s at issue here is the fact that Beijing needs to sign off on any deal. If they don’t give a blessing to ByteDance to sell the app, there’s no sale.
But it was interesting hearing from ByteDance today because of the way they’re positioning this. They’re not talking about a sale or a potential deal; they’re talking about a potential solution. And today, in a statement, we saw them acknowledging, really for the first time, that they have been in conversations with the US government, but not using that terminology—that a sale is in the works. They’re saying a solution has been under discussion, but that they haven’t been able to reach one ultimately.
Potential for TikTok US deadline to Go Dark
It is, as you say, a bit of a wait and see, but what if TikTok US deadline does, as Donald Trump puts it, go dark in the US? Well, I did go dark for about 12 hours in mid January, and it was… it was actually quite interesting watching very devoted TikTok users almost holding a funeral like kind of set of live streams on the app, just sitting around together on the app virtually, of course—and mourning, you know, the passage of the app.
People are really attached to this, and not only do they enjoy it, but they also say, say to us, that they learn things on the app. They say that in some cases, it’s actually an important income stream for them. So, I think there will be quite a revolt among the users of TikTok US deadline if TikTok were to go dark.
Trump’s Previous Actions and Current Stance
You might remember in 2020, he was the one who initiated trying to ban TikTok US deadline here in the US. It got stuck in the courts, and now he thinks TikTok US deadline helped him win a lot of young voters here in the US. So, he’s a devotee and says he wants to make sure that it stays.