Trump again pushes TikTok sale deadline with 90 day extension

U.S. President Donald Trump is extending for a third time the deadline for Chinese company ByteDance to divest the American operations of TikTok, allowing the social media app to keep running in the U.S. while negotiations proceed. “As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement yesterday. “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.” The decision provides yet another lifeline for the popular app that spurred worries in Washington over national security and which has emerged as a source of friction between the U.S. and China. For Trump, who regards himself as the consummate dealmaker, the reprieve gives him more time to secure a complicated agreement that would require an American buyer and Beijing’s sign-off. Movement on a deal has largely stalled with U.S.-China trade relations swept up in larger tensions. Both sides are accusing each other of violating an agreement in Geneva in May to lower crippling tariffs. Subsequent talks in London this month saw the two sides look to ease confrontations centered on access to cutting-edge technology and rare-earth minerals. Trump’s latest extension, reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal, will come via an executive order and provide ByteDance an additional three months to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations beyond the latest June 19 deadline. Legal questions Under a law signed by then-president Joe Biden last year, ByteDance was directed to divest TikTok’s U.S. unit by January 19, but the company has balked at selling a lucrative business valued from $20 billion to as high as $150 billion, depending on the proposed terms and technology included. Trump first extended the deadline shortly after taking office in January and extended it again in April. Trump’s latest move is likely to draw questions over its legality. According to the law, the president could grant a one-time delay for as many as 90 days if “significant progress” was demonstrated toward securing a deal. When he punted the deadline again in April, Trump said a deal was largely in place but claimed China had changed its stance because of the tariff war between the two countries that saw the president levy high duties on Chinese imports and draw retaliation from Beijing. It’s unclear whether lawmakers from either party in Washington will emerge to contest the latest reprieve. Oracle consortium The administration has fielded several bids to buy TikTok’s U.S. assets , including a consortium of investors featuring Oracle, Blackstone and venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz that had emerged as a top contender. That potential agreement would have granted new outside investors 50% of TikTok’s U.S. business in a unit that would be spun off from ByteDance. ByteDance’s existing U.S. investors would also own about 30% of the business, cutting the Chinese firm’s stake to just below 20%, allowing it to meet the ownership requirements of the U.S. security law. Oracle would take a minority stake in the operations and provide security assurances for user data. The proposal would also have left the app’s algorithm in Chinese hands, removing a potential obstacle to winning approval from the company and authorities in Beijing. That exposes it to challenges by China hawks in Congress who worry such a deal would give Beijing too much access to U.S. data and could violate a provision in the law requiring the software to be removed from Chinese control. The Trump administration was close to reaching the deal involving Oracle before the earlier April 5 deadline, but China withheld its approval following the U.S. president’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs. By Stephanie Lai

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Trump again pushes TikTok sale deadline with 90 day extension