Tiktok in the USA: Trump could extend the time for the takeover

Imminent ban in the USA –

Trump apparently wants to extend the deadline for the Tiktok deal

The video app is threatened with closure in the USA if it does not change hands by Sunday. But neither the old nor the future US government seems to want the ban.

Published: January 17, 2025, 07:53

“Americans should not prepare for Tiktok to suddenly be banned on Sunday,” a government representative who remained anonymous told the TV station NBC. A protester with a Tiktok sign in New York City.

Foto: Adam Grey (Getty Images via AFP)

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For Tiktok, a few days before the impending end in the USA a postponement. According to a confidant, future President Donald Trump wants to give himself more time to make a deal about the video app. At the same time, the government of outgoing head of state Joe Biden is also signaling that it does not want to implement a Tiktok blockade on the last day of his term in office.

So far it looked like Tiktok’s lights could go out in the USA for at least one day on Sunday. According to a US law on foreign control over online platforms, the 270-day deadline for a change of ownership then expires. If Tiktok is still owned by the China-based Bytedance Group, the app will be removed from Apple and Google’s American download platforms and will lose access to the infrastructure.

This would at least gradually make Tiktok unusable in the USA. Given this prospect, according to a media report, the app operators were planning a quick end: They were preparing to pull the plug on Sunday themselves, the website “The Information” reported a few days ago.

Tiktok headlines shouldn’t overshadow Biden’s final days

But that probably won’t be necessary. “Americans should not prepare for Tiktok to suddenly be banned on Sunday,” a government representative who remained anonymous told the TV station NBC. Options for the appropriate implementation of the law are being examined. On ABC, the White House was even clearer: The deadline expires on a weekend the day before the inauguration of the new president – “and it will fall to the next administration to enforce it.”

Biden can legally extend the deadline for Tiktok by three months. However, the prerequisite for this is that there are promising sales negotiations – and Tiktok and Bytedance have so far refused to even talk about a separation. But the White House is signaling that Tiktok headlines should not overshadow Biden’s final days in office.

The eagerly awaited ruling by the US Supreme Court on the Tiktok law could now be less decisive than expected.

Trump, who tried in vain to force a sale of Tiktok by threatening to ban it during his first term in office, has now discovered a heart for the platform. Trump emphasized that he was successful on Tiktok and was able to appeal to many young people there in the race for the White House. “Why would I want to get rid of Tiktok?”

Tiktok boss is said to be sitting in the stands at Trump’s inauguration

Another sign of how highly the platform is now in Trump’s favor: According to media reports, Tiktok boss Shou Chew, as well as the heads of major American tech companies, will be sitting in the stands at Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

The president also actually has to bow to the law – but his camp is already exploring the legal scope. “We will take measures to ensure that Tiktok does not go out,” Trump’s future national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News. This should give Trump more time to negotiate a deal.

Waltz himself voted for the law last year as a Republican congressman. Just a year ago, he said that China had to be denied access to millions of Americans for propaganda and data collection.

Now Waltz still assured that Trump wanted to protect US users’ data. “Conservatives certainly don’t want Chinese communists to get their passwords and data and influence the American people,” he said.

In the USA there are warnings that the Chinese government could gain access to data from US users via Tiktok and misuse the platform for propaganda. Tiktok and Bytedance reject this. The members of Congress in the Senate and House of Representatives had received confidential briefings on the risks surrounding Tiktok, but the US government did not publicly disclose the evidence of allegations against the app.