US President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order on Thursday which declares that a deal is being negotiated by the White House on the social media application TikTok’s US operations.
This deal will also meet the requirements which were previously set out in a 2024 law, a White House source with knowledge on the matter was cited by Reuters.
What Is This Deal About?
The White House had said, earlier this week, that Trump will declare that a deal is being worked out to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations from its Chinese owner ByteDance and it will meet requirements which were specified in a law passed by Congress, banning the short video app unless its Chinese owner is ended.
Trump’s Wavering Support For TikTok
While Trump has credited the video-sharing platform for helping him win re-election last year, he has also delayed enforcement of the law through mid December amid efforts to extract TikTok’s US assets from the global platform, line up American investors and ensure that the new ownership qualifies as a full divestiture needed under the 2024 law.
TikTok has nearly 170 million US users. While contesting for re-election last year, Trump had nearly 15 million followers on his personal account.
Additionally, the White House has also launched an official TikTok account last month.
Further, an extension of this executive order is expected on Thursday.
Trump’s Tiff With TikTok
During Trump’s first term as President, the Senate had passed a bill unanimously which was intended to prohibit downloading the app on devices issued by the government.
This was done as installing the app on government-issued devices was seen as a national risk because of the fears that through the app precious American data could be stolen or the access could allow the Communist Party of China (CPC) to conduct espionage on a remote basis.
Yet another such apprehension was that the CPC could further manipulate public opinion in America.
This further led to Joe Biden’s administration passing the ‘Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’ in 2024. However, the legislation has not been passed yet and the deadline to divest the ownership has been extended thrice already.
