U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would be willing to reduce tariffs to get a deal done with TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance.
ByteDance faces an April 5 deadline to find a non-Chinese buyer for TikTok or face a U.S. ban on national security grounds.
In the latest twist over the fate of the popular short-video app, Trump said he was willing to extend the deadline if an agreement over the social media app was not reached.
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ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok faces a deadline of April 5 to strike a deal for its US operations — or be banned from the country under a bipartisan law passed during the Biden administration
“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. Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
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 April 5.
The future of the app used by nearly half of all Americans has been up in the air since a law, passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support, required ByteDance to divest TikTok by January 19.
The app briefly went dark in January after the U.S. 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 April 5 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, effectively playing the role of investment bank.
