Trump extends TikTok deadline for third time, delaying potential US ban

US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order granting TikTok a 90-day extension to continue operating in the United States, further postponing the potential national ban unless a deal is reached to sell the platform.

It marks the third time Trump has granted such a reprieve since the law mandating a divestiture was enacted. The new deadline is set for Sept 17.

"I've just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

TikTok welcomed the move, expressing appreciation for Trump's "leadership and support" in keeping the platform available to US users. The company said over 170 million users and 7.5 million businesses in the United States rely on the app.

Under a law passed last year, ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, must either sell its US operations or shut down by Jan 19 this year. The law allowed a 100-day extension if a sale was actively in progress.

TikTok and a group of users filed a legal challenge last May, arguing the law violated their First Amendment rights. However, a federal appeals court upheld the legislation in December, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Jan 17 to let the law stand.

TikTok briefly went offline and was removed from app stores on Jan 18, just before the law took effect. But it resumed operations hours later after Trump signed an executive order on Jan 20, his first day in office, directing the attorney general to pause enforcement of the ban for 75 days. The app returned to Google and Apple app stores on Feb 13.

That initial extension expired on April 5. In the lead-up, several parties expressed interest in acquiring TikTok. Amazon submitted a last-minute bid. Other prospective buyers included Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, partnering with billionaire investor Frank McCourt; artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI; and Steven Mnuchin, former treasury secretary under Trump.

At the time, White House officials appeared optimistic about spinning off TikTok into a US-controlled entity. However, talks reportedly fell through after China withdrew support following Trump's renewed tariff announcement. On April 6, Trump granted another 90-day extension, pushing the deadline to June 19 to allow more time for negotiations.

Analysts believe the repeated delays are being used as leverage in broader trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing.

Dario Garcia de Viedma, a digital policy expert in Spain, told Euronews that the TikTok issue is being intertwined with other trade matters, such as tariffs and export controls. He suggested that a straightforward resolution would be unlikely.

There is currently no legal precedent limiting how many times a president can extend such a deadline, and no lawsuits have been filed to challenge the extensions.

TikTok has repeatedly denied posing national security risks, saying US user data is not stored in China. After the legislation passed last year, some users in the United States reportedly began migrating to other Chinese social apps, such as RedNote, expressing indifference about where their data was stored.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that public support for banning TikTok has declined to around one-third of Americans, down from 50 percent in March 2023.