Reuters
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The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he would extend the term of June 19 so that Bytedance, based in China, disintelligent the American assets of Tiktok, the application of short videos used by 170 million Americans, if by then an agreement has not been reached.
“I would like it to be done,” Trump told the NBC News “Meet The Press With Kristen Welker” program in an interview recorded Friday on Trump’s property in Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, which will be broadcast throughout the United States on Sunday.
Trump claimed to have a preference for the application after helping him to gain the support of young voters in the 2024 presidential elections, adding: “Tiktok is very interesting, but will be protected.”
Trump has already granted two extensions to the application of the prohibition imposed by Congress to Tiktok, which initially had to enter into force in January.
An agreement was being negotiated that would split American Tiktok operations to create a new company based in the United States, mostly owned and operated by US investors. However, the agreement was suspended after China indicated that it would not approve it after Trump’s ads to impose strong tariffs on Chinese products.
Democratic senators argue that Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline and suggest that the agreement that was being considered would not meet the legal requirements.
A source close to American investors in Bytedance said last month that the work on the possible agreement continues before the deadline of June 19, but that the White House and Beijing would have to first resolve the tariff dispute.
Trump told NBC News that China was anxious to reach an agreement, citing the impact that 145 % tariffs on Chinese products were having in their economy.
He said he would not eliminate tariffs for Beijing to sit at the negotiating table, but could eventually reduce them as part of a broader agreement.
“At some point, I’m going to reduce them because, otherwise, business could never be done with them. And they really want to do business,” he said.
The law demanded that Tiktok stop operating before January 19, unless Bytedance had completed the divestment of the American assets of the application. Trump began his second presidential mandate on January 20 and chose not to apply it. First extended the deadline until the beginning of April and then, last month, until June 19.
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