On Tuesday, the White House stated that President Donald Trump will sign an executive order this week to extend the deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the well-known video sharing app.
Following the halting of a possible deal to sell TikTok to American owners, Trump issued an order in early April to keep the app operational for an extra 75 days.
“President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark, as he has stated numerous times,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The Administration will use this 90-day extension to work towards closing this deal so that Americans can continue using TikTok with confidence that their data is safe and secure.”
Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington early Tuesday from the Group of Seven summit in Canada that he “probably” would extend the deadline again.
Trump also said he thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping will “ultimately approve” a deal to divest TikTok’s business in the United States. It will be the third time Trump has extended the deadline.
The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when the ban approved by Congress — and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.
It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters.
He said in January that he has a “warm spot for TikTok.”
