President Trump plans to give the owners of TikTok another 90 days to find another owner, in line with federal law mandating that, due to national security concerns, it cannot be owned by a Chinese company.
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, will now have more time to find an American buyer. The ban deadline was extended a few times by the Trump administration, as it was originally meant to be banned in January.
“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
Trump has extended the deadline on the ban twice, once in January and once in April. His executive order in April told the DOJ to not enforce the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” until June 19th. Now, the deadline for TikTok to secure a new deal will be in September.
Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month for about 90 minutes about trade, but the TikTok issue was not raised. Senior U.S. and Chinese trade representatives met in London a few days later and reached a “framework deal” for easing the trade war between the two countries.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee last week, saying TikTok was not discussed in London during those meetings.
“I have no visibility into TikTok,” Bessent said.
Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act last year, which gave ByteDance until Jan. 19th to fully cut ties with TikTok or be banned from web-hosting services and U.S. app stores. It was passed due to national security concerns.
The Supreme Court ruled that the new law was justified due to national security concerns, specifically the Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to harvest private data from Americans.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.
“It is not clear that the Act itself directly regulates protected expressive activity, or conduct with an expressive component. Indeed, the Act does not regulate the creator petitioners at all. And it directly regulates ByteDance Ltd. and TikTok Inc. only through the divestiture requirement,” the court had written at the time.
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