President Trump likes TikTok however the Chinese language-owned brief video app, utilized by some 170 million Individuals, has to maneuver to US possession, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick mentioned on Sunday.
“The President really likes TikTok, and he said it over and over again, because, you know, it was a good way to communicate with young people,” Lutnick mentioned in an interview on Fox Information Sunday with Shannon Bream.
“But let’s face it, you can’t have the Chinese have an app on 100 million American phones, that is just not okay. So, it’s got to move to American ownership, it’s got to move to American technology, American algorithms,” he mentioned. “I know the President is positive towards TikTok, if it can move into American hands.”
Lutnick’s feedback comply with his warning final week that TikTok should cease working within the U.S. if China doesn’t approve a deal for the app.
He advised CNBC on Thursday that US should management the algorithm that makes the social media platform work.
TikTok mother or father ByteDance has a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform’s US property.
Final month, President Trump prolonged by 90 days to Sept. 17, a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US property of TikTok. Trump’s motion came about regardless of a 2024 regulation that mandated a sale or shutdown by Jan. 19 of this 12 months if there had not been vital progress.
“China can have a little piece or ByteDance, the current owner, can keep a little piece. But basically, Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm,” Lutnick mentioned.
“If that deal gets approved, by the Chinese, then that deal will happen,” he added. “If they don’t approve it, then TikTok is going to go dark, and those decisions are coming very soon.”
A deal had been within the works this spring that might spin off TikTok’s US operations into a brand new US-based agency, majority-owned and operated by US traders. This stalled after China indicated it will not approve it following Trump’s bulletins of steep tariffs on Chinese language items.
Trump has 3 times granted reprieves from federal enforcement of the regulation that mandated the sale or shutdown of TikTok that was presupposed to take impact in January.
