China hit brakes on TikTok deal after Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs, AP source says

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said he is signing an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 75 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.

The order was announced as White House officials believed they were nearing a deal for the app’s operations to be spun off into a new company based in the U.S. and owned and operated by a majority of American investors, with China's ByteDance maintaining a minority position, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But Beijing hit the brakes on a deal Thursday after Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs around the globe, including against China. ByteDance representatives called the White House to indicate that China would no longer approve the deal until there could be negotiations about trade and tariffs, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive details of the negotiations.

Congress had mandated that the platform be divested from China by Jan. 19 or barred in the U.S. on national security grounds, but Trump moved unilaterally to extend the deadline to this weekend, as he sought to negotiate an agreement to keep it running. Trump has recently entertained an array of offers from U.S. businesses seeking to buy a share of the popular social media site.

But on Friday it became uncertain whether a tentative deal could be announced after the Chinese government’s reversal of its position complicated TikTok’s ability to send clear signals about the nature of the agreement that had been reached for fear of upsetting its negotiations with Chinese regulators.

The near-deal was constructed over the course of months, with Vice President JD Vance’s team negotiating directly with several potential investors and officials from ByteDance. The plan called for a 120-day closing period to finalize the paperwork and financing. The deal also had the approval of existing investors, new investors, ByteDance and the administration.

The Trump administration had confidence that China would approve the proposed deal until the tariffs went into effect. Trump indicated Friday that he can still get a deal done during the 75-day extension.

“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump posted on his social media platform. “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 added, “We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.”

A spokesperson for ByteDance confirmed in a statement that the company has been discussing a “potential solution” with the U.S. government but noted that an “agreement has not been executed.”

“There are key matters to be resolved,” the spokesperson said. “Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law.”

TikTok, which has headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety, and China’s Foreign Ministry has said China’s government has never and will not ask companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries.

Trump’s extension marks the second time that he has temporarily blocked the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline passed for ByteDance to divest. That law was passed with bipartisan support in Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which said the ban was necessary for national security.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China and a co-author of the TikTok bill, said Friday there should be no further delay. “Bidders are lined up, and the clock is ticking. No more excuses. It’s time to do the work. It’s time to comply with the law and save TikTok now,” he said.

Although the decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, it has not faced a legal challenge in court. That type of pushback is unlikely, legal experts say, due in part to how difficult it is for someone to establish the legal right, or standing, to sue. A plaintiff would have to be able to show harm from the delay in enforcing the law.

Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, said she doesn't believe anyone has that standing.

“It would be different if this platform weren’t already in place,” she said. “But if you’re trying to just continue with the status quo, it’s different."

Still, if the extension keeps control of TikTok’s algorithm under ByteDance’s authority, the national security concerns that led to the ban persist.

Chris Pierson, CEO of the cybersecurity and privacy protection platform BlackCloak, said that if the algorithm is still controlled by ByteDance, then it is still “controlled by a company that is in a foreign, adversarial nation-state that actually could use that data for other means.”

“The main reason for all this is the control of data and the control of the algorithm,” said Pierson, who served on the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Committee and Cybersecurity Subcommittee for more than a decade. “If neither of those two things change, then it has not changed the underlying purpose, and it has not changed the underlying risks that are presented.”

The law allows for one 90-day reprieve, but only if there’s a deal on the table and a formal notification to Congress. Trump’s actions so far violate the law, said Alan Rozenshtein, an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota.

Rozenshtein pushed back on Trump’s claim that delaying the ban is an “extension.”

“He’s not extending anything. This continues to simply be a unilateral non enforcement declaration,” he said. “All he’s doing is saying that he will not enforce the law for 75 more days. The law is still in effect. The companies are still violating it by providing services to Tiktok.

The extension comes at a time when Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

Terrell Wade, a content creator with 1.5 million followers on TikTok under the handle @TheWadeEmpire, has been trying to grow his presence on other platforms since January.

“I’m glad there’s an extension, but to be honest, going through this process again feels a bit exhausting,” he said. “Every time a new deadline pops up, it starts to feel less like a real threat and more like background noise. That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring it, but it’s hard to keep reacting with the same urgency each time.”

He is keeping up his profile on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook in addition to TikTok.

“I just hope we get more clarity soon so creators like me and consumers can focus on other things rather than the ‘what ifs,’” he said.

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AP reporters Mae Anderson in New York and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this story.