President Donald Trump has taken advantage of Vice President JD Vance to negotiate a possible sale of Tiktok to an entity based in the United States before the most recent prohibition extension passes in April, according to two people familiar with the agreement.
In the last chapter of the Tiktok saga, which began in 2020 with Trump and culminated in the application that darkened for a few hours last month, the president selected Vance, along with the national security advisor Michael Waltz, to supervise a possible agreement with the Congress between the Congress between the possible agreement between owner based in China Bytedance and an American entity.
White House negotiators will have their work cut for themselves. It remains to be seen what kind of arrangement, if there is any, okay and China will accept. Trump recently raised the idea of American joint and China 50/50 property, but the situation remains fluid. It is also uncertain if such division would satisfy the national security concerns of the ongoing United States that stimulated the prohibition in the first place.
Meanwhile, several suitors based in the United States are competing for the popular application of social networks.
Tiktok, who has always maintained that he does not share the data of its users based in the USA. UU. With the Chinese government, it was initially prohibited on January 19 after the approval of a bipartisan law signed by the then President Joe Biden. Tiktok questioned that measure, but the Supreme Court confirmed it in the last days of the Biden administration.
On January 18, the application was briefly obscured in the United States, only to return approximately 12 hours later after Trump said he would review the ban and that he would not penalize the application or the stores that carry it. On January 19, the day before the inauguration of Trump, Tiktok sent an Push notification that accredited him for his resurrection.
The President signed an executive order on his first day in office “instructing the Attorney General not to take any measure to enforce the law for a period of 75 days as of today to allow my administration to determine the appropriate course In an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding the abrupt closure of a communications platform used by millions of Americans. “
The measure occurred after several Tiktok users had downloaded a similar Chinese application called Rednote in protest for the ban, which raises more security and censorship problems in the United States.
Now that Trump has slapped China with an additional 10% tariff on those that are already in place, the Bytedance may be less anxious to negotiate with the United States government.
The representative Raja Krishnamorthi (D-Bill.), Member of Classification of the Select Committee of Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, told NBC News that the bytete can be more open to sell now that it has exhausted all its options To maintain application control.
“There is only much that can try to change the law, everything failed. And now they have to fight with the law, ”said Krishnamorthi.
Krishnamorthi said that possible American buyers, of the Jimmy Donaldson YouTuber, which is widely known as Mrbeast, to billionaire Frank McCourt, have been “aligning” to buy Tiktok.
The representative Jason Crow (D-Colo.) He said it was important that Tiktok remained accessible to US users, but I would like the application to disintegrate by the byte.
“I am a father. I have heard of my children, my teenage children, about this. I understand that it is important for many people. They use it for companies. I understand it, but I am also a member who focuses a lot on national security, ”he said.
Crow, who supported the legislation demanded by divestment, said: “We structured it in that way because we do not want to finish the platform.”
During the 75 -day breath of Tiktok, the users who kept it on their phones have been able to access the application, load content and use it as they did before, but Google and Apple currently do not offer Tiktok in their respective application stores.
A Trump administration official said the Department of Justice, as well as Trump’s executive order, have made it clear that Google and Apple will not face sanctions if they offer Tiktok to download, and added that the White House will not tell private companies what they can and I can’t offer.
“There is no action to enforce the law or impose sanctions against any entity for any breach of the law, even to distribute, maintain or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance or update) of any application controlled by foreign adversary as defined in The Act, ”says the Executive Order.
