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President Donald Trump has said that tariffs on China may depend on the agreement regarding the ownership of TikTok, as he signed an executive order to keep the popular short-form video platform online in the US for 75 days.
After hours inauguration on MondayTrump has postponed a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its stake in the app or face a ban in the country.
Trump argued that the US “should be entitled to half of the TikTok“If the device continues to operate beyond that loophole and that he could “certainly” impose tariffs on China if it rejects the deal, which he says would be a “hostile act”.
Trump added that the tariffs could be as high as 100 percent. “I think eventually (Beijing) will accept it because we can put tariffs on China,” Trump said when he signed the order in the Oval Office. “I’m not saying I will, but you certainly can.”
The 75-day period of the “divest-or-ban” law is designed to “allow the (Trump) Administration the opportunity to determine the appropriate measures regarding TikTok”, read the executive order.
It also said that the companies that run and host TikTok – which include Apple and Google stores as well as cloud provider Oracle – cannot be held responsible for breaking the law yet. Under the law, service providers risk being fined $5,000 per user.
TikTok became temporarily unavailable for about 170 million US users when the ban went into effect at midnight on Sunday, after the law was upheld by the Supreme Court in Friday.
But it started service hours laterthe company says Trump has given enough assurances that service providers won’t face penalties.
The CEO of TikTok Shou Zi Chew did something offensive after Trump indicated during his campaign that he hoped to “save” the app. Hlafuna on Monday attended the inauguration as well as tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, after praising Trump with public praise over the weekend.
Some US politicians and security officials believe that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access the personal information of Americans, which could facilitate espionage, and use the app’s algorithm to spread propaganda. TikTok denies that Beijing has control over the app.
TikTok has previously said that deviance was technologically impossible at the time of the law. Beijing has expressed its opposition to the deal.
However, Trump suggested that if the app continues to operate in the United States after the extended period, the country should be paid “half of the value of TikTok”, and added: “If I don’t make that deal when It’s worth it. If I make that deal it would be a billion dollars.”
Last week, they The Financial Times reported that Chinese officials were discussing using Musk, a close friend of Trump, as a broker for a possible sale of TikTok’s US operations.
Musk on Sunday complained of an “unbalanced” situation. between the presence of TikTok in the US and the lack of access for his website X in China, where western technology platforms are generally banned. “Something has to change,” he said.
The Tesla CEO does not comment on issues affecting Beijing, due to his extensive business interests in China, an important market and production center for his electric car company.
Beijing did not immediately respond to Trump’s comments threatening tariffs if it does not agree to the TikTok deal.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry had said that any decision on the ownership of TikTok should be taken “according to market regulations and determined by the companies themselves”.
Additional reporting by Aime Williams in Washington
