United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he might give a little relaxation on tariffs to China to secure Beijing’s approval for TikTok’s sale.
While talking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “Maybe I give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done.”
Trump said that he will have a form of deal on TikTok with China and added that if it weren’t done in time, he would extend the deadline, which was scheduled for April 5. “China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly in the form of an approval and I think they’ll do that.”
The fate of TikTok turned black in US after the US law ordered the application to separate from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or face a ban, due to concerns that Beijing could utilise the platform for surveillance or influence operations targeting Americans.
The legislation became effective on January 19, prior to Trump’s inauguration, though he subsequently issued a postponement allowing continued operations.
Trump previously attempted to prohibit TikTok’s US operations during his first presidential term, citing national security risks.
In January, TikTok briefly ceased US operations and was removed from application stores as the deadline approached, affecting millions of users.
Following his second term commencement on January 20, Trump suspended the ban’s implementation for 75 days whilst seeking resolution with Beijing.
TikTok resumed US services and returned to Apple and Google platforms in February.
AI company Perplexity has recently declared its interest in acquiring TikTok.
The company outlined plans to combine its AI search technology with TikTok’s video-sharing platform in a blog post.
“Combining Perplexity’s answer engine with TikTok’s extensive video library would allow us to build the best search experience in the world,” the San Francisco-based organisation explained.
While TikTok appears hesitant about selling, potential buyers include “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” initiated by Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty.
Additional interested parties include Microsoft, Oracle and a group featuring Internet content creator MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson).
