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Vice President JD Vance said Friday that he was hopeful a deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. will be wrapped up by the early April deadline.
“There will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News abroad Air Force Two.
Questions about the future of the popular video sharing app have continued to linger since a law requiring its China-based parent company to divest or face a ban took effect on Jan. 19. After taking office, President Donald Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve by signing an executive order that delayed enforcement of the statute until April 5.
Vance, along with National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, were tapped by Trump to find an approved buyer. On Sunday, Trump told reporters aboad Air Force One the administration was in talks with “four different groups” about TikTok and that a deal could come soon.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have not publicly commented on the talks. It’s also unclear if ByteDance has changed its position on selling TikTok, which it said early last year it does not plan to do.
After it made those comments, ByteDance and TikTok launched a legal challenge against the federal law, which was passed with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by then-President Joe Biden. In January, the two companies lost their case at the U.S. Supreme Court.
NBC News reported that Vance did not offer details on who the potential buyers could be but noted that some issues could push a final agreement past the April 5 deadline.
“We’d like to get it done without the extension,” Vance told the news outlet. “I think the question is, what is the equity ownership of the new joint venture? How do you do the contracts for all the investors, the customers, the service providers? … The deal itself will be very clear, but actually creating those thousands and thousands of pages of legal documents, that’s the one thing that I worry could slip.”
Trump has previously said the deadline on a TikTok deal could be extended further if needed. He has also proposed terms in which the U.S. would have a 50% stake in a joint venture. The administration hasn’t provided details on what that type of deal would entail.
