Trump’s TikTok love raises stakes in battle over app’s fate

Trump’s repeated support for TikTok sparks speculation about potential solutions to prevent the Chinese-owned app’s impending US ban

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Congress passed legislation that would block TikTok from US app stores and web-hosting services unless Beijing-based ByteDance sells its stake by January 19. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:34am, 24 Dec 2024

US president-elect Donald Trump’s repeated support for TikTok has sparked speculation about potential solutions to prevent the app’s impending ban in the United States, though the path forward remains unclear.

“We got to keep this sucker around for a little while,” Trump told supporters on Sunday, just days after meeting TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi in Florida.

Trump, who credits the wildly popular platform with delivering him a large young user base, opposes banning TikTok partly because he believes it would primarily benefit Meta, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company behind Instagram and Facebook.

The situation is complex, according to University of Richmond School of Law professor Carl Tobias, given the various potential solutions and Trump’s unpredictable nature.

Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation, signed by US President Joe Biden in April, that would block TikTok from US app stores and web hosting services unless Beijing-based ByteDance sells its stake by January 19.

US officials and lawmakers grew wary of the potential for the Chinese government to influence ByteDance or access the data of TikTok’s American users.