Trump says ‘I’m for TikTok’ as potential US ban looms

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Republican presidential candidate joined the app, which 170 million Americans use, last month, after previously calling it a threat

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Reuters

Published: 11:06am, 17 Jul 2024Updated: 11:21am, 17 Jul 2024

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he supports TikTok even as a potential ban looms if Chinese parent company ByteDance fails to divest the short video app’s US assets.

“I’m for TikTok because you need competition. If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram,” Trump told Bloomberg BusinessWeek in an interview posted Tuesday. Trump previously called TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans, a threat but then joined TikTok last month.

Trump, who has criticized Meta Platforms-owned Facebook and Instagram for suspending him for two years in the wake of the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021, told an interviewer in June he would never support a TikTok ban.

TikTok declined to comment. As president, Trump tried to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat in 2020, but the move was blocked by the courts. In June 2021, President Joe Biden withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban WeChat and TikTok.

A man carries a Free TikTok sign in front of the courthouse where the hush-money trial of Donald Trump got underway April 15, 2024, in New York City. Photo: AP