President Donald Trump on Friday delayed the ban on Tik Tok in the United States.
Mr Trump in a statement on Truth Social said that he signed an executive order and his administration had made “tremendous progress” on an agreement to save TikTok, but needed more time to finalise it.
He wrote, “The deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.’’
Mr Trump also said that China was unhappy with the tariffs posed by his administration and tagged the tariff as a “powerful economic tool” and crucial for national security.
He ended by saying “we do not want TikTok to go dark,” adding that his administration was looking forward to working with TikTok and China to close the deal.
The app was originally set to be banned in January, but the deadline was extended at the time by 75 days to give negotiators more time to reach an agreement, which meant that the app would be banned in April.
The app was to be banned on Saturday, however, the new 75-day extension effectively pushes the cut-off date further.
TikTok, owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, has faced scrutiny in the U.S. over national security concerns tied to data privacy and its links to the Chinese government.
In 2020, Mr Trump signed an executive order seeking to ban the app unless it was sold to an American company, citing the risk of user data being accessed by Beijing.
While the ban was later blocked in court and dropped under President Joe Biden, lawmakers from both parties continued to push for more control over TikTok.
A spokesperson for ByteDance in a statement said that they had been in discussion with the U.S. Government regarding a potential solution for TikTok to continue running in the U.S.
“An agreement has not been executed. There are key matters to be resolved. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law,” the statement read.
