Trump Likely to Grant TikTok 90-Day Reprieve Upon Assuming Office
President-elect Donald Trump indicated on Saturday that he is “most likely” to grant TikTok a 90-day extension to negotiate a deal that could prevent the popular video-sharing platform from being banned in the United States.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump shared that while no final decision had been made, he is considering granting the reprieve after his inauguration on Monday. A law set to take effect on Sunday, which prohibits mobile app stores and internet hosting services from distributing TikTok to U.S. users, was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden last year. The legislation required TikTok’s parent company, based in China, to sell its U.S. operations to an approved buyer within nine months, with a provision allowing the sitting president to extend the deadline if a sale is underway.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate,” Trump told “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker in a phone interview. “We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation.”
He added, “If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco clarified on Friday that the Biden administration would leave the implementation of the law to Trump, as his inauguration coincides with the day after the ban takes effect.
In a statement released on Friday, TikTok requested “a definitive statement” from the Biden administration confirming that it would not enforce the law or impose fines on app store operators like Apple and Google if they continued to offer TikTok beyond Sunday.
Without such assurances, TikTok warned it “will be forced to go dark,” though the company did not specify whether it would voluntarily suspend its U.S. operations or cease services after losing access to its service providers.
The White House dismissed TikTok’s statement as “a stunt.”
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” Jean-Pierre stated. “We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
As of Saturday, Apple, Google, and Oracle, which hosts TikTok’s data on its servers, had not responded to inquiries regarding their plans for Sunday. GMTNewsng
Source: Time
