What’s behind Donald Trump’s repeated support for TikTok?

On Sunday, US President-elect Donald Trump indicated that he favoured allowing TikTok to keep operating in the country for at least a little while.

He said he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.

His remarks came months after the US Senate passed a law in April requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app, citing national security concerns.

Let’s take a closer look.

Trump’s repeated support for TikTok

President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated support for TikTok has sparked speculation about potential solutions to prevent the app’s impending ban in the United States, though the path forward remains unclear.

“We got to keep this sucker around for a little while,” Trump told supporters on Sunday, just days after meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in Florida.

Trump, who credits the wildly popular platform with delivering him a large young user base, opposes banning TikTok partly because he believes it would primarily benefit Meta, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company behind Instagram and Facebook.

The situation is complex, according to University of Richmond School of Law Professor Carl Tobias, given the various potential solutions and Trump’s unpredictable nature.

Significant hurdles

President Joe Biden signed legislation in April after it was passed by Congress with overwhelming support. It would prevent TikTok from using US app stores and web hosting services unless Beijing-based ByteDance sells its interest by January 19.

The possibility that the Chinese government could control ByteDance or obtain the data of American users of TikTok alarmed US lawmakers and authorities.

Despite Trump’s resounding election victory and the incoming Republican-controlled Congress, there will be major challenges in granting the president-elect’s wish and stopping the ban.

Even with Trump’s influence on Republicans, it was politically unlikely that the law would be repealed outright by a vote in Congress because it received uncommon bipartisan support in a divided Washington.

The Supreme Court might provide the most obvious way ahead.

TikTok has filed an appeal with the highest court in the country, claiming the law infringes on its First Amendment right to free speech.

On January 10, nine days before the ban goes into force, the court—which consists mainly of conservatives who support Trump—will hear the case.

This comes after the law was unanimously upheld in December by a lower appeals court.

Tobias added that a Trump-led Department of Justice might conclude that ByteDance has resolved the national security issues raised by the statute.

Congress and others, however, would probably view such a step as giving in to China.

The last alternative is for ByteDance to sell to a non-Chinese customer, but the company has continuously rejected this idea.

It would cost a lot of money to acquire TikTok’s US business, which has 170 million monthly active users. In order to facilitate a deal, Trump, in his capacity as president, might extend the ban date by 90 days.

‘Deal of the Century’

Not many buyers have shown up, and big tech giants have probably been put off by antitrust issues.

Interest has been shown by former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who manages a private equity fund supported by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund and Japan’s SoftBank Group.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son promised to invest $100 billion in the US economy during a recent event with Trump, although he did not specify the precise investments.

US billionaire Frank McCourt , whose Project Liberty organisation seeks to make social media safer, is a third contender.

Given that he owns X and is close to Trump, Elon Musk may also be involved because he has stated aspirations to change the text-focused platform to resemble TikTok.

Trump might pull off a “deal of the century” that would appease ByteDance’s interests and satisfy US worries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

John Moolenaar, the chairman of the US House Committee on China, told Fox News Digital that things might move quickly once ByteDance agrees to follow US law.

Beijing’s approval would be required for any accord, as tensions between the US and China are predicted to continue throughout Trump’s next term.

There have been previous attempts to address TikTok’s US status. Trump reportedly threatened to ban ByteDance in 2020 unless it sold its US operations.

A preliminary agreement for ownership stakes was negotiated between Oracle and Walmart and ByteDance; however, the deal was not completed due to legal hurdles and the changeover to the Biden administration.

With inputs from AFP