Thought Leadership
US President Donald Trump has held out the prospect of lower additional tariffs for China in exchange for the Chinese government’s approval of the Tiktok sale.
Trump conceded that Beijing would “possibly” have a say in the deal – and that he thought China would approve a sale. “Maybe I’ll give them a little bit of a reduction in tariffs or something like that to be able to close the deal,” Trump said. Every percentage point of tariffs is worth more than the short video platform, he said.
Postponement by Trump
According to a US law, Tiktok should actually have been sold by the China-based owner Bytedance by January 19 – or go offline in the US. However, President Donald Trump granted a grace period of 75 days, which expires on April 5. He has now also reiterated the prospect of extending the deadline if necessary – although there is no basis for this in the law.
US Vice President J.D. Vance recently expressed his conviction that a fundamental solution for the future of Tiktok in the US would be found by the beginning of April. Bytedance and Tiktok had previously said that it would be impossible to sell just the US part of the app because this would break up the platform. Trump has now said that there are “different ways to buy Tiktok” – and they will find the one that is best for the US.
China decides on algorithm sale
In his first term in office, Trump wanted to force the sale of Tiktok’s US business by threatening to ban it, but was stopped by US courts. The law passed under President Joe Biden provides a solid legal basis for Tiktok to go out of business in the US – but Trump warmed to the app during the last election campaign and wants to keep it.
Meanwhile, China established the rule during Trump’s first term of office that government approval is required for the sale of software algorithms abroad. The Tiktok algorithm decides which videos are shown to users next and is therefore a central component of the platform’s success.
Bytedance does not want to let go
According to the US law, Bytedance must relinquish control of Tiktok. However, according to a recent report by the website “The Information”, Bytedance still hopes that Trump will accept the “Project Texas” plan, which has been pushed for years, in which information from US users is stored in the USA and Oracle monitors data flows and software updates. This was not secure enough for Trump’s predecessor’s administration, as Tiktok was to remain the property of Bytedance. Tiktok has a similar plan for Europe called “Project Clover” for data storage in Ireland.
dpa
