Summary
- President
Trump issued an order delaying TikTok ban enforcement. - The
app will remain available in the U.S. until at least Dec 16, 2025. - The
delay allows time for negotiations for U.S. control of TikTok. - Trump
plans a deal with China to transfer TikTok’s U.S. operations.
The injunction postpones until December 16 the
implementation of the statute that would prohibit the application in the United
States.
In response to national security concerns raised by Chinese
ownership of a platform that more than 170 million Americans daily use, Trump
initially signed an order ostensibly waiving implementation of the rule, which
had been passed by Congress and signed by then-President Joe Biden.
The most recent prolongation coincides with the agreement
reached by American and Chinese negotiators to transfer ownership of TikTok’s
American operations to a U.S. consortium that would allegedly hold 80 percent
of a new business that would run the app.
The Wall Street Journal claims that TikTok users would
switch to a new app that was developed using a different version of the
Chinese-made recommendation algorithm. This was the reason why the app was
banned in the US.
The two parties have “reached
a basic consensus on resolving the TikTok issue,” according to Wang
Jingtao, deputy director of China’s top internet regulator, who spoke to the
media in Madrid.
Negotiators had reached an agreement on “entrusting the
operations of U.S. user data and content security business,” he added, and
Beijing had consented to “licensing the use of TikTok’s algorithm and
other intellectual property rights.”
Before departing the White House on Tuesday for a state
visit to the United Kingdom, Trump also told reporters that an agreement had
been struck.
On Friday, he said he would call Chinese leader Xi Jinping
“to confirm everything up.”
“We made a very good trade deal, and I hope good for both
countries, but a very different deal than they’ve made in the past. We’ll be
announcing that we have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,”
he
said.
What would a U.S. takeover of TikTok require legally?
To align with the provisions of the 2024 Protecting
Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), TikTok
must be sold off to a non-Chinese owner, or face a ban from the UnitedStates.
For a TikTok divestiture to comply with the law, ByteDance
must either fully divest ownership of TikTok or maintain only 20% indirect or
direct ownership in a manner that allows for U.S. control over either TikTok’s
data infrastructure or algorithms or both TikTok’s data infrastructure and
algorithms.
The divestiture must ensure that TikTok is no longer subject
to operational control by a Chinese entity. The U.S. owner must maintain
control over TikTok’s algorithm and data infrastructure such that user data is
protected and cannot be accessed by the government of China.
