Report from the New York Times
In Brief – President Trump has said that he had found a buyer for the TikTok short-video app and will soon begin talks with the Chinese Government to get the deal approved. He previously indicated that the identities of the possible buyers would be released in mid-July. The President said that the deal “probably” required approval by the Chinese Government, and that he thought they probably would do so. “I think the deal is good for China, and it’s good for us. It’s money, it’s a lot of money.” The President recently issued an executive order extending the deadline for ByteDance to divest ownership of TikTok’s US operations for a third time, running until September 17, 2025. He has said before that a deal was nearly finalized in April but talks stopped when the Chinese Government raised objections to new tariffs imposed on China. While there is no clear legal basis for the repeated extensions of the enforcement provisions of the bill forcing TikTok’s sale, unlike with many of President Trumps other executive orders, there have so far been no legal challenges to overturn his TikTok ban delays.
Context – The federal law forcing the sale of the platform went into effect on January 19 after the Supreme Court rejected the First Amendment-based challenges of the company and a group of content creators. While the law gave the President the authority to extend for 90 days the provisions that prohibit app stores and hosting providers from supporting TikTok’s US services, it required him to certify that the time was needed to wrap up a qualified deal to divest the company. Some Republican “China Hawks” in Congress condemned delaying the law in January, which they said exceeded the statutory provisions. In April, when his tariff orders reportedly derailed a TikTok sale, President Trump indicated that he might grant China somewhat lower tariff rates if they approve a deal, leading to criticism from Democratic backers of the law. Questions continue regarding how the app could operate without using the TikTok algorithm engineered by ByteDance in China, as well as the implications of the worsening US-China trade relationship.