Trump extends Tiktok's operating license again
Tiktok is banned in the USA in order to force its sale to US investors. Actually. In fact, the President grants another permit.
(Image: Luiza Kamalova/Shutterstock.com)
The US ban on TikToks will not take effect for at least another 90 days. According to the White House, US President Donald Trump has issued a corresponding operating permit for TikTok. The previous exemption would have expired on Thursday.
In 2020, when Trump was the 45th President of the USA, he himself tried to ban TikTok by presidential decree. However, he was not authorized to do so, so a court stopped Trump's TikTok ban. Meanwhile, Trump was voted out of office once and re-elected four years later. In between, the US legislature stepped up to the plate: both US parties jointly passed a law with a clear majority that bans TikTok as long as it is in Chinese hands. In the recent election campaign, Trump suddenly changed his mind and began to campaign for TikTok in the US. However, he was unable to persuade the Supreme Court to repeal the TikTok Prohibition Act.
Instead, Trump has been issuing temporary operating licenses for TikTok since his second term in office. The law only provides for this if community owner Bytedance can demonstrate real progress towards the sale of TikTok. Whether this requirement is met is doubtful. After all, under Chinese law, the government of the People's Republic of China would also have to give its consent.
Trump's tariffs prevented a deal
According to US media reports, negotiations were already at an advanced stage in April. Bytedance would have kept only 20 percent, with the rest going to US investors. However, Trump then torpedoed the negotiations by increasing the tariffs on imports from China to up to 145%.
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In addition, both sides imposed export bans in their economic war. Washington and Beijing have since agreed to relax the export bans and at least temporarily reduce the US tariffs to “only” 55%. In the slipstream of this slight relaxation, a TikTok deal could succeed.
US media have attributed Trump's change of heart from an arbitrary TikTok ban to a personal commitment against the legal TikTok ban to large donations to Republican campaign funds by Jeff Yass, among other things. This billionaire holds shares in ByteDance.
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