Trump signs TikTok executive order delaying app ban, threatens tariffs

Trump extends deadline by 75 days, threatening tariffs on China if Beijing does not approve a deal regarding the short-video app

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US President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office on Monday. Photo: AP

Published: 9:32am, 21 Jan 2025Updated: 5:05pm, 21 Jan 2025

On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump followed through on his campaign promise to delay a controversial TikTok divest-or-ban law.

Signing an executive order to this effect, Trump warned that he would impose significant tariffs on China if Beijing failed to approve a deal regarding the short-video app.

“I may not do the deal. I may do the deal. TikTok is worthless, worthless. If I don’t approve it, it has to close. I learned that from the people that own it,” Trump said on Monday.

“With TikTok, I have the right to either sell it or close it, and we’ll make that determination … We may have to get an approval from China too, I’m not sure, but I’m sure they’ll approve it,” he added.

Trump went on to suggest that “if we wanted to make a deal with TikTok, and it was a good deal, and China wouldn’t approve it, then I think ultimately they’d approve it because we’d put tariffs on China”.

“Maybe, I’m not saying I would, but you certainly could do that. And if we said, well, ‘you’re not going to approve it’, then that’s a certain hostility, and we’ll put tariffs of 25, 30,40, 50 per cent, even 100 per cent.”