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The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he would extend the deadline of June 19 for the China bytete in China to uninverting American assets of Tiktok, the short video application used by 170 million Americans, if no agreement had been reached by then.
“I … I would like to see it done,” Trump told NBC news Program ‘Meet the press with Kristen Welker’ in an interview recorded on Friday at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago farm in Palm Beach, Florida, which is broadcast through the United States on Sunday.
Trump said he had a “sweet point” for the application after he helped him win about young voters in the 2024 presidential elections, he added: “Tiktok is, it is very interesting, but it will be protected.”
Trump has already granted twice a postponement of the execution of a mandatory prohibition of the Tiktok Congress that would initially take effect in January.
An agreement had been in process that would turn Tiktok operations in the United States in a new company based in the United States and, owned by the majority and operated by US investors, but was suspended after China indicated that it would not approve it after the Trump ads of pronounced tariffs on Chinese products.
Democratic senators argue that Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline and suggest that the agreement that had been considered would not meet the legal requirements.
A source close to American investors in Bytedance said last month that the work in the possible agreement continues before the deadline of June 19, but the White House and Beijing would need to resolve the first tariff dispute.
Trump told NBC news That China was eager to reach an agreement, citing the impact that 145% of tariffs on Chinese goods had on their economy.
He said he would not drop the tariffs to take Beijing to the negotiating table, but that he could eventually reduce them as part of a broader agreement.
“At some point, I’m going to download them because otherwise you could never do business with them. And they want to do business a lot,” he said.
The law demanded that Tiktok stop operating before January 19 unless the Bytedance had completed a disinvestment of the US assets of the application. Trump began his second term as president on January 20 and chose not to apply it. First extended the deadline in early April, and then again last month to June 19.
