 "US President Donald Trump has vowed to save TikTok from a ban. (Image Credit: Reuters)")
US President Donald Trump has offered China a deal: facilitate the sale of TikTok’s US operations and secure tariff concessions.
Under a bipartisan bill signed into law by former President Joe Biden last year, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, had to sell the platform’s US operations by January 19 or face a ban. As ByteDance failed to comply, the app briefly went dark in the United States, but, in one of the first actions after assuming office on January 20, Trump extended the deadline till April 5.
Now, Trump is using 20 per cent tariffs that he has imposed on China and more reciprocal tariffs in the offing as a leverage to make China strike a deal.
As ByteDance is a Chinese company, the Chinese regime needs to approve any deal selling the company’s US operations.
TikTok played a major role in Trump’s election victory and he had vowed to save the app as a reward. However, the app has been indicted as a tool of the Chinese regime to brainwash users into supporting China and hating the West. The bipartisan effort to ban the app was based on such national security concerns.
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Speaking to the media at White House, Trump on Wednesday said that “maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done”.
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View AllTrump said, “TikTok is big, but every point in tariffs is worth more than TikTok. Sounds like something I’d do.”
Trump further said that if a deal is not reached until April 5, he will extend the stay that he first granted on January 20 with executive action.
Multiple offers have been made to buy US operations of TikTok so far. Earlier this month, Trump said that at least four offers had been made.
Earlier, Forbes had reported the following offers to buy TikTok’s US operations : (1) Oracle’s discussions to buy TikTok along with other investors, such as Microsoft; (2) Perplexity AI merging with TikTok; (3) YouTuber Mr Beast offering to buy TikTok’s US operations; (4) Billionaire Frank McCourt, backed by Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary and Guggenheim Securities, proposing to buy TikTok’s US operations