• Trump sees Tiktok as a key to youth voice.
• Tariff Row stops potential US-based Tiktok Deal.
• Legal debate is growing over Trump’s authority to delay.

US President Donald Trump said he would extend the June 19 deadline for China-based city dancing to dispose of US assets in Tiktok, the short video app used by 170 million Americans if no deal had reached any agreement before then.

“I want … I want to see it done,” Trump told NBC News The program ‘Meet the Press with Kristen Welker’ in an interview taped Friday at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, which will be broadcast across the United States on Sunday.

Trump said he had a “sweet spot” for the app after it helped him win young voters in the presidential election in 2024 and added, “Tiktok is – it’s very interesting, but it will be protected.”

Trump has already twice awarded a postponement of enforcing a congress -based ban on Tiktok, which was to take effect in January.

An agreement had been in the works that would spin Tiktok’s US operations into a new company based in the US and majority -owned and operated by US investors, but it was put on a wait after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s steep customs announcements on Chinese goods.

Democratic Senators claim that Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline and suggest that the agreement under consideration would not meet legal claims.

A source close to Bytedance’s US investors said last month that working on the potential agreement will continue before the deadline of June 19, but the White House and Beijing would first resolve the customs.

Trump told NBC News That China was eager to reach an agreement with reference to the effect that 145% duty on Chinese goods had on its economy.

He said he would not drop the tariffs for getting Beijing to the negotiating table, but could eventually lower them as part of a wider deal.

“At some point I want to lower them, otherwise you could never do business with them. And they will do business a lot,” he said.

The law demanded that Tiktok stop operating by January 19, unless Bytedance had completed an divestment of the app’s US assets. Trump began his second term as president on January 20 and chose not to enforce it. He first extended the deadline until early April and then again last month to June 19.