The US president changed his tone regarding the Chinese social network and said he was ready to give it «another reprieve,» even without reaching an agreement with ByteDance.
The US president changed his tone regarding the Chinese social network and said he was ready to give it «another reprieve,» even without reaching an agreement with ByteDance.
Donald Trump said he has a «little soft spot» for TikTok and wouldn’t mind delaying its ban again, Axios reported, citing an interview with NBC. This is despite the fact that it was his administration that first initiated the ban on the platform due to suspicions of data leaks to China.
In 2020, Trump tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a US investor, but a deal never materialized. He later changed his rhetoric, acknowledging the platform’s impact on young people and claiming to have won their sympathy: he won by a 36-point margin among young voters.
CNN fact-checked Donald Trump’s claims of winning among young people are false. They conducted a poll that found Trump lost to Kamala Harris among voters aged 18-24 — 43% to 54%.
The new law, signed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 2025 or the app will be blocked in the US. Trump first pushed the deadline back to April 5, then extended it again. In March, he even said he was willing to lower tariffs on China just to make a deal.
On the Truth Social platform, Trump wrote about «significant progress» in the negotiations, and now he directly stated: TikTok «will be protected.»
As a reminder, the EU recently fined TikTok 530 million euros. The platform’s representatives were unable to prove the security of user data from the Chinese government.
