President Donald Trump is planning to extend TikTok’s ability to operate in the U.S. for the third time, the New York Post reported.
In April, Trump issued an executive order extending the TikTok enforcement delay until June 19. With that deadline rapidly approaching, the president is expected to sign an additional order putting off a ban on the wildly popular social media app for yet another time.
“The president has said he’s willing to if it has to happen,” an official familiar with the matter told the “On the Money” earlier in the week. China “just wants to hold this up as leverage in the trade talks,” the source added.
China and the U.S. are currently engaged in high stakes trade negotiations as the repercussions of Trump’s tariffs are beginning to take their toll on the communist nation. TikTok has been accused of stealing user data yet parent company ByteDance has adamantly denied the allegations.
Trump has had a mixed relationship with the video sharing app over the years. Initially the president was a sharp skeptic and agreed with the accusations of TikTok’s data security malpractice, but has since seen its potential and credited it with contributing to his November victory. “We’ll probably have to get China’s approval. China’s never easy,” he told reporters last week. “I’d like to save TikTok. I mean, TikTok was very good to me.”
In April of 2024, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted 360-58 to force TikTok to divest or be banned in the U.S., and former President Joe Biden then signed the bill into law. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law passed by Congress.
When Trump was elected, enforcement of the law then fell to the new administration, but it has since been met with a series of extensions as a buyer able to pry it away from the Chinese owned ByteDance has proved elusive.
Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law and former counsel to Senate Republicans told The Wall Street Journal on Friday the president is overstepping his authority by continual declining to enforce a law passed by Congress. “We’re already well past any legal authority for the president to decline to execute this law. This is a pretty clear case,” he said.
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