2 days Ago By HuffPost
President Donald Trump on Sunday said his administration believes “there will be a deal” on TikTok ahead of a deadline set for the popular social media platform to divest of its Chinese ownership. In a press gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One , Trump said the White House is “working on TikTok.” “We have a lot of potential buyers,” he said.
“There’s tremendous interest in TikTok. The decision is going to be my decision. As you know, through Congress they’ve given me the power to make the decision.
We have a great team of people essentially taking bids.” The president appeared confident that an agreement would be reached ahead of the April 5 deadline he set the platform to comply with a U.S.
law requiring its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the U.S. assets of TikTok or see the platform be removed from app stores in the U.
S. over national security concerns. “There will be a deal we think,” Trump said.
Trump has previously appeared open to extending the deadline if necessary. His comments echo Vice President JD Vance’s earlier prediction that “there will almost certainly be a high-level agreement” by Saturday. Vance and national security adviser Mike Waltz have been tasked by Trump to lead the negotiations on TikTok.
The New York Times reported that a deal would possibly involve the platform’s current U.S. investors moving their stakes to a separate international TikTok company.
Private equity firm Blackstone is also considering investing in the social media platform, the Times and Reuters reported . Trump has said a potential sale would require Chinese approval, previously leaving open the possibility of reducing tariffs on Beijing if it went along with his plan. “Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” he said last week .
Even though Trump tried to ban the platform during his first term, he has since had a change of heart on the issue, repeatedly speaking about the effect he believes TikTok had in helping him win November’s election. “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive,” he said Sunday. “I mean, I’ll be honest, selfishly speaking, I won the young vote by 36 points.
Republicans generally don’t do very well with the young vote and I think a lot of it could have been TikTok, it could have been Joe Rogan and it could have been a lot of things but it was also TikTok.” Despite his claims, exit polls showed that Trump did not win the overall youth vote. Still, he made gains with that age group, especially with young male voters who favored him over Kamala Harris.
Americans appear to be becoming less skeptical of TikTok. A recent Pew Research survey found that support for a ban on the platform has dipped considerably, while fewer U.S.
adults now consider the platform to be a national security threat. Related..
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