It didn't take long. Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders. Among them was the temporary suspension of the law, which banned TikTok in the US.
According to the Trump Department of Justice order will not enforce The Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act by 75 days, effectively extending the time it takes for the company to reach an agreement. In a statement, Trump said the “unfortunate timing” of the law, which took effect in President Joe Biden's final hours in office, “is interfering with my ability to assess the national security and foreign policy implications of the Act's prohibitions before they take effect.” ” effect.”
He wrote that he would review “sensitive information” related to national security concerns raised by critics of the app and “evaluate the adequacy of the mitigation measures TikTok has taken to date.” Previously, the company made many years of efforts known as Project Texasto move user data from the US to servers hosted by Oracle. This agreement was reached after many years of negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), but these negotiations stopped last year.
TikTok (and other ByteDance applications) went offline late Saturday before the law takes effect Sunday. However, the TikTok outage only lasted a few hours. Service is gradually being restored after Trump promised to sign an executive order suspending the law after he was sworn in on Monday. He confirmed that “there will be no liability for any company that helped TikTok go offline before my order.” Trump also proposed a joint venture that would give US interests a 50 percent stake in TikTok.
Earlier on Monday China (where ByteDance is based) signaled openness reach an agreement with the US that will allow TikTok to remain active there in the long term, despite previously saying it would block a forced sale of the app. “When it comes to actions such as operating and acquiring enterprises, we believe that they should be taken by companies independently in accordance with market principles,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said. “When it comes to Chinese companies, Chinese laws and regulations must be followed.”
During his first administration, Trump sought ban TikTok in the US. He signed executive orders to this end, including an attempt to force ByteDance to sell its US business. This did not happen at that time. But pressure on TikTok has intensified during the Biden administration, with former President signed the bill last year it called for ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the US.