Credit：Xinhua News Agency
Trump is considering steps to halt a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, a move he promised to support during his campaign, The Washington Post reported. Trump reportedly views TikTok as an asset, especially after amassing over 14 million followers on the short video platform.
Trump intends to avoid alienating 180 million U.S. users, the report cited Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Trump ally who described TikTok’s presence as central to Trump’s appeal, as he values the app’s reach for political messaging.
The U.S. Congress has passed a bill and U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law that could ban TikTok in the country in April. The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act ( the “Act”) is part of a comprehensive foreign aid package providing assistance to Israel, Ukraine and other U.S allies. It gives TikTok owner ByteDance 270 days to divest its U.S. assets including TikTok, otherwise the Chinese tech giant would face a ban on its app being available in U.S. app stores or on U.S. web hosting services. It also grants the White House the authority to prolong this deadline by another 90 days if the president deems that progress has been made towards a sale.
If TikTok owner ByteDance doesn’t meet the deadline required by the Act, Trump could work on options to delay or even cancel the ban. One option Trump can adopt would be to leverage his administration’s authority to extend the deadline by 90 days if there is “significant progress” towards a sale, The Washington Post reported. It added that legal experts have suggested Trump could also encourage Congress to repeal the legislation altogether or influence his attorney general not to enforce it.
TikTok boasts over 170 million users in the United States and holds significant economic and cultural influence. Advocates for the measure have voiced their apprehensions regarding the company's ownership structure, suggesting it could potentially grant the Chinese government access to American users' data—a claim flatly refuted by TikTok. While supporters of the potential ban say it is necessary in order to mitigate national security risks the app poses due to China-based ByteDance. TikTok previously insisted it has never shared U.S. data and never would. It has said ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country.
Trump, who tried to ban the social media platform the last time he was in the White House, reversed his position on potential banning TikTok during his campaign this year.
In a March interview with CNBC, Trump said he still believed TikTok posed a national security risk but opposed banning it because doing so would help its rival Facebook. Trump in June joined TikTok and stating “it’s my honor” on his first video posted on the platform. During a Q&A video widely circulated on June 7, Trump said he would "never ban TikTok."
TikTok filed a federal lawsuit in May to seek a court order to prevent the U.S. government from enforcing the Act, claiming the Act is unconstitutional for violation of the First Amendment, burdening its protected speech rights.
If the courts uphold the law, it would fall on Trump’s Justice Department to enforce it and punish any potential violations with fines. The fines would lead to prohibition on app stores from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services who would be barred from supporting it. The attorney general has to investigate violations but can decide whether or not to drag such companies to court and force them to comply, Leah Plunkett, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, said from her reading of the statute.
Trump could issue an executive order to nullify the ban — which Plunkett believes would not be lawful — or urge Congress to repeal the law. That would require support from Congressional Republicans who have aligned themselves with Trump but have also supported ByteDance’s divestiture of TikTok.
Republican Representative John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said Trump’s “long-standing concerns” about TikTok align with the law’s requirement for divestment. “The Trump Administration will have a unique opportunity to broker an American takeover of the platform,” he said in a statement after the election.
TikTok is bracing for a potential ban in the United States as soon as January, but some staff and creators of the ByteDance unit have come to see President-elect Donald Trump as a possible savior, Bloomberg reported last week. Trump could devise an alternative solution to a sale, urge Congress to roll back the law or instruct his Justice Department not to enforce it, but none of those scenarios are as simple as they sound, the report noted. Some TikTok insiders don’t believe Trump can deliver for they fear that he could can be erratic or that he might enrage allies in Congress who crafted the law, according to the report.
