Trump announces extension of deadline to save TikTok

The president posted on Truth Social that he is signing an order to keep TikTok, a popular social media app, online for another 75 days, narrowly avoiding Saturday’s deadline for the parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the Chinese government. Trump said his administration is working on a deal with the Chinese government and American investors to decouple the app from the Chinese Communist Party, but it needs more time. He acknowledged that recent tariffs on China have complicated negotiations, but said he looks forward to working with TikTok and China to close a deal.

What’s going on with TikTok? Last April, former President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Lawmakers raised national security concerns that the Chinese government has access to the app’s algorithm and collects data on Americans. The bill requires app providers like Apple and Google to remove the platform from their stores unless ByteDance sells its algorithm. The Supreme Court upheld the ban after ByteDance filed challenges against the law, arguing it infringed on free speech.

What is the administration’s position? President Trump considered banning the app in 2020. In July of that year, he ordered ByteDance to divest its ownership and ordered Pentagon staff not to download TikTok. He signed an order banning it from the United States, but district courts issued preliminary injunctions following legal challenges from ByteDance and WeChat, another Chinese app that was included in the ban. President Biden reversed Trump’s executive order in 2021. Then last year, Trump reversed his position and said he supported the app. He asked the Supreme Court to stop the ban from going into effect in December. The app briefly went dark on Jan. 18, but then Trump signed an order to extend the deadline to April 5. He said the administration is working on finding American investors to take over the app. Amazon, Blackstone, and Oracle are reportedly bidding on it.

Dig deeper: Listen to Nick Eicher and Mary Reichard cover the Supreme Court’s deliberations over TikTok and national security concerns on The World and Everything in It podcast.