- Tiktok is Tiktok’s decision, says she works with the White House
- The law forced the sale or closure of Tiktok by January 2025.
- The manager says that the president “does not want Tiktok to become dark.”
President Donald Trump extended a deadline for Bytedance based in China on Thursday, September 17 to yield American assets of the Tiktok short video application despite a law that has forced a significant sale or closure.
Trump signed an executive decree postponing the deadline for Thursday for 90 more days, a step he had reported before.
The republican president had already granted twice a stay of the federal application of a law which mandated the sale or closure of Tiktok, which was to take effect in January, in the absence of significant progress towards a sale.
Trump said he wanted to keep the application, which helped him won young voters in the 2024 presidential election, active in the United States.
He also expressed the optimism that Chinese President Xi Jinping approves an agreement that preserves the application, although it is not clear to what extent the subject was considerably presented in the current commercial talks of the two countries to resolve a tariff dispute.
“We are grateful to the management and support of President Trump to guarantee that Tiktok continues to be available,” Tiktok said in a statement published on his website.
The company said that it continued to work with the office of the American vice-president JD Vance on the issue.
“President Trump will sign an additional decree this week to maintain operational Tiktok,” the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
“President Trump does not want Tiktok to darken,” she added, saying that the administration will spend the next three months to ensure that the sale ends so that Americans can continue to use Tiktok with the assurance that their data is safe.
Trump had declared on Tuesday that he would probably prolong the deadline. “We must probably get the approval of China, but I think we will get it,” he told journalists on the Air Force One. “I think President Xi will finally approve of it.”
A law of 2024 forced Tiktok to stop working by January 19 unless the Chinese parent of Tiktok, Bytedance, has completed the American assets of the application 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 in early April, then again last month to June 19.
In March, Trump said that he would be willing to reduce prices on China to conclude an agreement with Bytedance to sell the short video application used by 170 million Americans.
An agreement had been in progress this spring, which would turn Tiktok American operations in a new American company, belonging to the majority and operated by American investors, but it was suspended after China indicated that it would not approve it following the advertisements of the steep prices of Trump on Chinese products.
Some Democratic legislators argue that Trump has no legal power to extend the deadline and suggest that the agreement considered would not meet legal requirements.
