Trump tariffs scuttle potential TikTok deal - deadline extended 75 days
President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer by 75 days.
The move comes despite strong speculation that a deal was close. According to media reports, the complicating factor has been Trump's latest round of tariffs which have angered the Chinese.
Go Deeper: The Australian reports plans for a deal were dashed as representatives from its Chinese parent company ByteDance said Beijing had withdrawn its approval for the transaction after Trump announced a new 34 per cent tariff on goods from China starting next week.
What they said: "My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress," he wrote in a Truth Social post. "The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days."
Why it matters: The 75-Day extension avoids another US TikTok shutdown, as occurred briefly in January ,but as The Information's Kaya Yurieff notes, even if a deal is done, there remain a number of unanswered questions about how an American TikTok would function.
"This plan doesn’t address some of the biggest questions about how a new U.S. TikTok entity would function," she wrote. "Will TikTok CEO Shou Chew continue to lead the company? Will ByteDance still be involved in running the day-to-day operations? Which current employees of TikTok, a global company with lots of key functions based in the U.S., will be hived off into TikTok America? Then of course there’s the key question of whether the Chinese government will give its blessing. Chinese officials have stayed mum publicly."
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