Trump expresses hope that discussions with China would continue in “good faith,” acknowledging that China was displeased with the US reciprocal tariffs
US President Donald Trump has said that his administration had been working on a deal to “save TikTok” and said that he would be signing an executive order to keep the app operational for an additional 75 days.
Sharing a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote, “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.”
Trump further expressed hope that discussions with China would continue in “good faith,” acknowledging that China was displeased with the US reciprocal tariffs. He defended these tariffs as essential for ensuring fair and balanced trade between the two countries. Trump emphasised that the goal was to prevent TikTok from “going dark.”
“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,” the post added.
Notably, the announcement comes just one day before the ban was set to go into effect, after Trump delayed by an initial 75 days when he took office in January, according to CNN.
Last year, former President Joe Biden enacted a law that mandated TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, based in China, to sell off the app or face a ban in the United States due to national security concerns. While the law was initially scheduled to take effect in January, Trump announced he would postpone its enforcement in an effort to negotiate an agreement that would keep the app “alive.”
A ByteDance spokesperson said the TikTok parent company “has been in discussion with the US government regarding a potential solution for TikTok US.” “An agreement has not been executed. There are key matters to be resolved. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law,” the ByteDance spokesperson said in a statement, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, several potential buyers have cropped up in reports.
Amazon has put in a last-minute offer to the White House to acquire TikTok. Amazon declined to comment. Trump has said he would be open to selling TikTok to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, as well as Elon Musk, although the latter said he had no intention of buying.
Other potential buyers include billionaire Frank McCourt, together with Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary – a celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US version of Dragons’ Den. Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit, said in a post on X last month that he had joined Mr McCourt’s bid.
The biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson – AKA MrBeast – has also said he’s looking to buy TikTok as part of a group of investors.
Tim Stokely, the British founder of OnlyFans, has also to offered to buy TikTok under his recently re-launched company, Zoop. Computing giant Microsoft, private equity giant Blackstone, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and search engine Perplexity AI are also reportedly in the running for a stake.
The White House has reportedly considered an option whereby ByteDance would keep ownership of TikTok’s algorithm, but lease it to a new entity operating the video-sharing app within the US.
TikTok says it has 170 million US users who spent – on average – 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024. Experts say rivals such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts could benefit if Trump’s efforts to broker a sale of TikTok don’t succeed.
“Chief marketing officers who we’ve spoken with confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok,” said Kelsey Chickering, an analyst at market research company Forrester. Other potential winners include Amazon’s Twitch, which made its name by hosting livestreams – a popular feature on TikTok. Twitch is well known particularly to gamers, though its other content is expanding, too. Other Chinese-owned platforms, such as Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote among its US users – have also seen rapid growth in the US and the UK.
