Washington: In what is being seen as a knee jerk reaction, US president Donald Trump has deferred the ‘blackout’ of the immensely popular TikTok app in his country by 75 days. This came after China blocked a bid by a consortium of new US investors to take over nearly half of TikTok’s American business.
The US government had threatened to ban TikTok after which US companies, including Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone, decided to take control of the app’s US operations. This would leave ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company, less than 20% shares in US operations.
However, the ongoing tariff war between the US and China seems to have gotten in the way. Beijing put its foot down and stated: “We have always opposed practices that violate the basic principles of the market economy.”
Realising that a ‘blackout’ of the app in the US would lead to a backlash, Trump declared: “My administration has been working very hard on a deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.”
At the same time, he acknowledged that China is unhappy with the US’s new reciprocal tariff policy, which he defended.
“We hope to continue working in good faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our reciprocal tariffs (Necessary for fair and balanced trade between China and the USA!). This proves that tariffs are the most powerful economic tool and very important to our national security! We do not want TikTok to “go dark.” We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Trump further posted.
