TikTok sale remains unconfirmed as Trump is expected to extend for the third time.

The law enforced by the U.S. Congress mandating TikTok to alter its ownership structure has yet to be implemented, with this Thursday (June 19) being the deadline. Media reports suggest that Trump has hinted at another extension.

Agence France-Presse reported that this would be Trump's third extension of the federal order requiring TikTok to sell or face a ban in the U.S., with the previous two extensions delaying implementation by 75 days each. In an interview with NBC in early May, Trump stated that if no transfer agreement could be reached, he would likely extend the deadline again.

The White House did not respond to AFP's inquiries regarding this matter.

According to multiple U.S. media reports, preliminary agreements had been reached in early April to separate TikTok’s U.S. operations from ByteDance and restructure its capital structure, increasing the stake held by non-Chinese investors from 60% to 80%, while ByteDance retains the remaining 20%. Oracle, an American technology company, plans to lead this transaction. The company has already taken responsibility for hosting TikTok’s U.S. user data. Additionally, Blackstone Group, a major asset management giant, and tech entrepreneur Michael Dell are among the participants in this deal.

However, after Trump announced a 54% tariff on Chinese products, which was later raised to 145%, it affected the Chinese side of the deal. Siva Singh, a professor at the University of Warwick, said, "TikTok is no longer just a social network; it has become a symbol of technological rivalry between China and the U.S."

Despite the agreement reached in early June on the "general framework" for normalizing trade relations between China and the U.S., the TikTok issue remains unresolved. The platform has not been affected by the potential ban risk and still has 170 million users in the U.S., including 7.5 million business accounts, ranging from large corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to data analysis platform Appfigures, TikTok is currently the second most popular application on the Android system in the U.S., trailing only ChatGPT.

Rob Enderle, an analyst at Enderle Group, believes that "as long as TikTok does not provoke Trump, it should continue to perform well." Trump also mentioned in an NBC program that he "has some goodwill toward TikTok," which significantly eased the tension surrounding the enforcement of the TikTok ban. Compared to the situation earlier this year when many TikTok influencers were preparing to migrate to Instagram or YouTube, the media coverage is now relatively calm as the deadline approaches, and there is general expectation of further extension for TikTok.

In early May, Trump told NBC that TikTok could be included in broader trade negotiations with China as a "bonus card," but these two issues have since been completely separated. Reports indicate that as the deadline approaches this Thursday, U.S. lawmakers who previously spoke out loudly about this issue now seem to have lost interest in it.

Source: rfi

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1835166832326856/

Disclaimer: This article solely represents the author's viewpoint.