Donald Trump, after TikTok briefly went dark in the US, proposes a 50% US ownership in a joint venture to keep the platform operational and avoid a ban. This proposal faces resistance from lawmakers who insist on ByteDance severing all ties with the Chinese Communist Party.
Former President Donald Trump , after TikTok briefly went dark in the United States, is setting his administration up for what could be an early dispute with Congress . 'I'm asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!' Trump said on TruthSocial over the weekend. 'I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law's prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security .
' Trump's stance comes after Congress passed legislation last April requiring TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, though it disputed that, to sell the platform by January 19, 2025, or else it would be banned in the U.S. ByteDance filed a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court and the court's decision upheld the law. ByteDance has not sold TikTok, and as a result, the platform was temporarily disabled for people in the U.S. on Sunday. However, it came back online hours later. 'I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,' Trump added. 'By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to stay up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions,' He continued, 'Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.' However, Trump's proposal faces pushback from some lawmakers. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), one of the biggest China hawks in the GOP, and despite being a close ally of the incoming president, disputed Trump’s goal of allowing the platform to remain online and extend the deadline for the sale. 'Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date. For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China,' said Cotton and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE). Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he shared Trump’s “goal of keeping the app available to Americans who enjoy the content, but our national security interests have to be met before that can be achieved” and warned that if the app does dark permanently, “it’s because ByteDance refused to meet America’s legitimate national security concerns.”Several incoming members of Trump’s team were supportive of the legislation to force the sale of the popular platform last spring as well. 'The of China is carrying out a sustained comprehensive plan to damage America & make China the most powerful nation on earth. Preventing this will require many difficult actions in the years ahead,' Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominated secretary of state, said last March. 'If we can’t even bring ourselves to ban a Chinese Communist Party’s controlled spy & propaganda algorithm how we will ever going to do the much harder but necessary things that lie ahead?’ Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, said at the time, 'Communist-backed TikTok should be banned in . 100% banned,' and his incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, went as far as to say, 'We need to make sure that TikTok is not used as a tool of Chinese influence.' Waltz seemingly changed his tune last week when he said, “TikTok is a great platform that many Americans use and has been great for campaign and getting his message out,” adding, “He’s a deal maker. I don’t want to get ahead of our executive orders, but we’re going to create this space to put that deal in place.
Tiktok Donald Trump Congress Bytedance China National Security Joint Venture Ban
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