Donald Trump has said he would be willing to reduce tariffs on China to get a deal done with TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the social media app used by 170 million Americans.
He acknowledged the role China would play in any agreement. “With respect to TikTok, and China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly in the form of an approval, maybe, and I think they’ll do that,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” he added.
Trump’s comment suggests the sale of TikTok’s is a priority for his administration and important enough to use tariffs as a bargaining chip with Beijing.
TikTok did not immediately comment.
ByteDance has a 5 April deadline to find a non-Chinese buyer for TikTok or face a US ban on national security grounds that was supposed to have taken effect in January under a 2024 law.
The move is the result of concern in Washington that TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance makes it beholden to the Chinese government and that Beijing could use the short video app to conduct influence operations against the US and collect data on Americans.
In February and earlier this month, Trump added levies totalling 20% to existing tariffs on all imports from China.
Getting China to agree to any deal to give up control of a business worth tens of billions of dollars has always been the biggest sticking point to getting any agreement finalised. Trump has used tariffs as a bargaining chip in the TikTok negotiations in the past.
On 20 January, his first day in office, he warned that he could impose tariffs on China if Beijing failed to approve a US deal with TikTok.
Vice-president JD Vance has said he expects the general terms of an agreement that resolves the ownership of the social media platform to be reached by 5 April.
Reuters reported last week that White House-led talks among investors are coalescing around a plan for the biggest non-Chinese backers of ByteDance to increase their stakes and acquire the video app’s US operations, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
The future of the app used by nearly half of all Americans has been up in the air since a law – passed with overwhelming bipartisan support – required ByteDance to divest TikTok by 19 January.
The app briefly went dark in January after the US supreme court upheld the ban, but flickered back to life days later once Trump took office. Trump quickly issued an executive order postponing enforcement of the law to 5 April and said last month that he could further extend that deadline to give himself time to shepherd a deal.
The White House has been involved to an unprecedented level in the closely watched deal talks, in effect playing the role of investment bank.
Free speech advocates have argued that the ban unlawfully threatens to restrict Americans from accessing foreign media in violation of the first amendment of the US constitution.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
