Washington — On Friday, President Trump announced plans to issue another executive order aimed at postponing the enforcement of a law that essentially prohibits TikTok, as negotiations continue over a potential sale of the immensely popular app.
Mr. Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office that directed the Justice Department to refrain from enforcing the ban for a period of 75 days. This order instructed the Justice Department not to take any action or impose penalties against “any entity for any noncompliance.” The executive order is set to expire on Saturday, April 5.
On Friday, Mr. Trump stated that he would not enforce the law for at least another 75 days.
“My Administration has been diligently working on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made significant progress. The Deal requires further effort to obtain all necessary approvals,” the president commented. “We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We anticipate collaborating with TikTok and China to finalize the Deal.”
According to a bipartisan law enacted last year, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, initially had until January 19 to divest from TikTok or face being cut off from U.S. app stores and hosting services.
TikTok briefly and voluntarily shut down before the January deadline but restored access to U.S. users after Mr. Trump, who was inaugurated one day after the deadline, promised to take action.
It took nearly a month for Apple and Google to restore TikTok to their U.S. app stores following Mr. Trump’s initial directive.
Despite Mr. Trump’s decision not to enforce the ban, the law remains in effect, and companies like Apple and Google could still face penalties for violations in the future. However, the law allows for restrictions to be lifted on TikTok if a sale occurs.
Numerous reports have emerged in recent months about U.S. companies and investors making offers that were being evaluated by the Trump administration.
When TikTok contested the law last year, it argued that it never had the option to choose between divestment or a ban because a forced sale is “simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally.” The Chinese government has previously indicated it would obstruct the sale of TikTok’s algorithm, which customizes content recommendations for each user.
Following Mr. Trump’s announcement on Friday, a spokesperson for ByteDance stated that the company has been in talks with the U.S. government regarding “a potential solution.”
“An agreement has not yet been finalized. There are significant issues that still need addressing. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law,” the spokesperson added.
Mr. Trump hinted that he might lower tariffs on China if they consent to the deal.
“Perhaps I’ll offer them a slight reduction in tariffs or something to expedite the process,” the president said on March 27. “Every point in tariffs is more valuable than TikTok.”
However, lawmakers are likely to be dissatisfied if any arrangement does not completely sever ties between ByteDance and TikTok.
“If ByteDance remains involved in any capacity, the deal is illegal—plain and simple,” Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House China Committee, asserted last month.
He expressed that a potential licensing agreement allowing TikTok to operate in the U.S. while utilizing ByteDance’s algorithm contradicts the law as ByteDance would still retain access to user data.
“This situation feels eerily familiar—in 2023, through the failed Project Texas, ByteDance attempted to create the façade of improved data privacy by storing American data on U.S. servers, all while maintaining control over the platform. While shifting data storage to the United States may have seemed like a reasonable solution, it overlooked the fundamental issue: ByteDance’s control over TikTok,” Moolenaar wrote in an op-ed for the National Review last month.
In 2022, TikTok launched an initiative named “Project Texas” to protect American user data by hosting it on U.S. servers and alleviate lawmakers’ concerns. However, the Justice Department found the plan inadequate as it still permitted some U.S. data to be transferred to China.
During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last year, former Sen. Marco Rubio, who is now secretary of state, emphasized that U.S. officials have regarded TikTok as a national security risk because the algorithm driving the platform is managed by a China-based entity. The Chinese government, he stated, could compel TikTok to grant it access to the data it collects on tens of millions of Americans or exploit it to disseminate propaganda to them.
“TikTok cannot function without that algorithm, and that algorithm is controlled by a company that is governed by the Chinese Communist Party according to Chinese law,” Rubio noted.
Three Democratic senators reached out to Mr. Trump in March urging him to collaborate with Congress to devise a long-term resolution for TikTok’s future. The senators—Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Cory Booker of New Jersey—expressed their opposition to a TikTok ban but deemed it “unacceptable and unworkable” for the Trump administration to “continue ignoring the mandates outlined in the law.”
TikTok contested the law in court, but it was dismissed unanimously by the Supreme Court shortly before it was set to take effect. The Supreme Court’s ruling stated that the divest-or-ban law does not infringe upon the free speech rights of TikTok or its 170 million U.S. users, siding with the government’s argument that the platform could potentially be exploited by China to gather a vast amount of sensitive data on Americans.
