President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will sign an executive order to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. for another 75 days in order to let the app’s Chinese parent company find an American buyer before a ban is implemented.
Trump’s announcement comes one day before the social media platform was set to go offline in the U.S.
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” he posted on Truth Social. “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.”
Trump unilaterally extended the TikTok deadline on his first day back in office to April 5, giving the China-based ByteDance time to find a U.S. buyer in compliance with a national security law that Congress passed last year. ByteDance, which hasn’t indicated it plans to divest, still owns TikTok.
Concerned about the Chinese government accessing American users’ data, lawmakers passed bipartisan legislation that former President Joe Biden signed last April. TikTok tried challenging the ban, but the Supreme Court upheld the law before Biden left office. The bill set the deadline for a sale on January 19.
TikTok was briefly banned in the U.S. until Trump intervened. The president-elect at the time announced he would sign an order a day later to restore the platform, which came back online shortly after the announcement. The app has over 170 million domestic users.
Trump’s extensions of the TikTok deadline are viewed by some as a clear example of executive overreach in that he delayed enforcement of a law meant to preserve national security, not to mention it was approved by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, very few lawmakers who voted for the bill have challenged Trump’s initial executive order extending the deadline by 75 days.
Representative John Moolenaar (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, argued there should be no deal that allows ByteDance to retain control of TikTok and its operations.
“The law is clear: any deal must eliminate Chinese influence and control over the app to safeguard our interests,” he wrote in an op-ed for National Review last month.
Several American companies and individuals are vying for control of TikTok. Some of the prospective buyers include Microsoft, Blackstone, Oracle, Walmart, Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary, and billionaire Frank McCourt. Additionally, Amazon and OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely submitted last-minute bids this week.
The president said he hopes to keep working on a TikTok deal with China, which he says is unhappy with the higher tariff rates that were announced on what the administration called “Liberation Day” this week. In his message, Trump called tariffs the “most powerful Economic tool” at his disposal and said they’re “very important” for national security.
“We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal,” he added.
The U.S. imposed on China an additional 34 percent tariff on top of the pre-existing 20 percent tariff, leading the foreign nation to levy a 34 percent retaliatory tariff on American imports. The Chinese tariffs will take effect on April 10, one day after the steeper U.S. tariffs begin.