- Tiktok Hails -Decision, says it works with the White House
- Law mandated Tiktok Sales or Closing by January 2025.
- Officially says president “doesn’t want Tiktok to get dark.”
US President Donald Trump expanded a deadline for China-based city dancing on Thursday to 17 September to dispose of US assets in the Short video app Tiktok despite a law that had mandated for sale or closure without significant progress.
Trump signed an executive order that pushed back Thursday’s deadline for 90 days more, a step he had signaled previously.
The Republican President had already twice awarded a postponement of federal enforcement of a law that had a mandate for sale or the closure of Tiktok, which was to come into force in January, absent significant progress towards a sale.
Trump has said he wants to keep the app, which helped him woo young voters in the presidential election in 2024, actively in the United States.
He has also expressed optimism that Chinese President Xi Jinping would approve an agreement that retains the app, although it is not clear how significant the subject has appeared in the two countries’ ongoing trade interviews to resolve a customs.
“We are grateful to President Trump’s leadership and support to ensure that Tiktok remains available,” Tiktok said in a statement published on his website.
The company said it continues to work with US Vice President JD Vance’s Office on the matter.
“President Trump will sign a further executive order this week to keep Tiktok going,” the White House of White House said Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday.
“President Trump does not want Tiktok to get dark,” she added, saying that the administration will spend the next three months ensuring that sales are closing so Americans can continue to use Tiktok with the insurance that their data is secure and secure.
Trump had said on Tuesday he would “probably, yes,” extend the deadline. “Must get China’s approval, but I think we’ll get it,” he told journalists aboard the Air Force One. “I think President Xi will eventually approve it.”
A 2024 law demanded that Tiktok stop operating by January 19, unless Tikkok’s Chinese parent, bytedance, had completed the disposal of the app’s US assets or demonstrated significant progress towards a sale.
Trump began his second term as president on January 20 and chose not to enforce the law. He first extended the deadline until early April and then again last month to June 19.
In March, Trump said he would be willing to reduce customs duty in China to get an appointment with Bytedance to sell the card video app used by 170 million Americans.
An agreement had been in the works in the spring that would turn Tiktok’s US operations into a new US-based company, the majority-owned and operated by US investors, but it was put to wait after China indicated it would not approve it after Trump’s steep tariffs on Chinese goods.
Some democratic lawmakers claim that Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline and suggest that the agreement in question would not meet legal claims.
