President Donald Trump expressed confidence on Sunday that a deal regarding TikTok would be reached before the April 5 deadline, which requires its Chinese owner ByteDance, to sell the platform or face a U.S. ban.
“We have a lot of potential buyers. There’s tremendous interest in TikTok,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One.
“We have a lot of people that want to buy TikTok. We’re dealing with China also on it, because they may have something to do with it,” he said, adding “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.”
However, China recently rejected a suggestion from Trump that he might offer to reduce tariffs to get Beijing’s approval for the sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese firm.
Earlier this month, Trump revealed that four groups were in discussions to acquire TikTok, which has 170 million American users.
A US law has ordered TikTok to divest from ByteDance or be banned in the United States, enacted over concerns that Beijing could exploit the app to spy on Americans or covertly influence US public opinion.
The law took effect on January 19, a day before Trump’s inauguration, but he quickly announced a delay that has allowed it to continue to operate.
That delay is set to expire on April 5.
“There’ll be a deal with TikTok, I’m pretty certain,” Trump said when asked if he would extend the deadline if there was no deal.
Trump attempted to ban TikTok in the United States because of national security concerns during his first stint in the White House but has warmed up to it.
“Selfishly speaking, I won the young vote by 36 points. Republicans generally don’t do very well with the young crowd, and I think a lot of it could have been TikTok,” he said.
AFP
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