Trump says no extension of TikTok deadline for China’s ByteDance
- Owner likely to miss US president’s September 15 deadline to divest American operations of popular video-sharing app
- Negotiations with bidders Microsoft and Oracle hit snag over new Chinese regulations
US President Donald Trump said he would not extend his September 15 deadline for ByteDance to sell the US operations of its popular TikTok video-sharing app.
“We’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it will be sold,” Trump told reporters Thursday before boarding the presidential aircraft for a campaign trip to Michigan. “There will be no extension of the TikTok deadline.”
Administration officials had been considering whether to give more time to TikTok’s Chinese owner to arrange a sale of the app’s US operations to an American buyer, though a decision had not yet been presented to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
ByteDance is likely to miss the president’s publicly stated deadline for the company to strike a deal to divest its US operations after new Chinese regulations complicated negotiations with bidders Microsoft and Oracle.
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US demands for TikTok may escalate decoupling and hurt businesses, says China expert
In preliminary talks with Chinese officials, ByteDance has been told that any proposal must be submitted for approval with detailed information about technical and financial issues, and the review will be substantial and take time.
TikTok is caught in a clash between the world’s two pre-eminent powers.
Trump has ramped up his pressure campaign on China ahead of what promises to be a hotly contested presidential election in November. US officials have criticised the app’s security and privacy practices, suggesting that user data collected through the app might be shared with the Chinese government.
The real deadline for ByteDance to act remains an open question in the US due to a confusing series of Trump statements and orders. While Trump has said he wants a deal by September 15, the ban on TikTok’s US operations that he signed last month in a bid to force a sale requires the company to act by September 20.
Documentation implementing that ban, possibly under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to regulate international commerce in response to any unusual threat to the country, is expected to be made public in the Federal Register around September 20, Bloomberg reported last week.
American executives pay the price of US-China cold war
A subsequent order issued by Trump on August 14 on the recommendation of an inter-agency national security panel requires ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US business within 90 days – giving it until after the November 3 election – further clouding the timeline for a TikTok sale.
The parties are still racing to present a preliminary deal to the White House before this month’s deadline, though no agreement could be finalised before Beijing’s sign-off.
It is also possible that ByteDance pulls out of a sale altogether if it determines it cannot satisfy both governments, the bidders and its own shareholders.
