US President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended the deadline for TikTok’s US shutdown for the fourth time in his second term ahead of a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the fate of the Chinese-owned short video app.
Advertisement
In an executive order issued on Tuesday, Trump set the new deadline for December 16.
The decision comes a day after the US and China concluded talks in Madrid, where the two sides reached a “framework” for resolving issues related to the app, according to senior Chinese trade negotiator Li Chenggang.
Trump, posting on Truth Social on Monday, said that a “deal” had been reached on a “‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save”. Later in the day, he told reporters that he would confirm with Xi on Friday whether there would still be a Chinese stake in the app.
The US Congress last year approved a countrywide ban on TikTok unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake by January 19. But the US president has extended the sale-or-ban deadline by executive order three times before now, most recently to September 17.
Advertisement
Trump made his first extension on January 20, his first day in office, after the platform briefly went dark in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the sale-or-ban law only days earlier.
02:48
US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, leaving app’s fate to incoming Trump administration
US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, leaving app’s fate to incoming Trump administration