US President Donald Trump lengthened a deadline by an additional 75 days for China-based ByteDance to sell the US operations of TikTok or face a ban, marking the second time he has granted an extension.
Trump announced the new deadline on Friday (April 4) in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying the TikTok deal “requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed”.
The new executive order signed by Trump pushes the deadline out to mid-June after his first extension of 5 April.
After the platform briefly stopped working in January, Trump delayed a proposed ban by 75 days by signing the initial executive order during his first day as president.
The first deadline for ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok’s US operations was 19 January before Trump extended it. In April 2024, the then US President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring China-based ByteDance to sell its US assets due to national security concerns.
On Wednesday (2 April), Trump announced a raft of tariffs for about 90 countries. Those measures included a 34 per cent tariff rate on China, in addition to the existing 20 per cent tariffs on imports
“We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!),” he stated on Truth Social. “This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security.”
Trump also said in the post his administration looks forward “to working with TikTok and China to close the deal”.
There are several entities that have expressed an interest in buying TikTok, which has around 170 million US users.