TikTok continued operations in the United States after President-elect Donald Trump said he would restore access to the app in the country, according to Reuters.
At a rally on Sunday, Trump added that the US would seek a collaborative solution to restore the short video-sharing app, which was used by 170 million Americans.
Frankly, we have no choice. We have to save it.
TikTok had previously reported that US users could access the service’s website, whereas the much more widely used TikTok app itself started to come back online for some users, offering just a few basic services.
The app was unavailable for download in US app stores late Sunday. In a later statement, TikTok said that “in agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service.”
The public gratitude to Trump on TikTok the day before he took office came at a tense moment in relations between the US and China. Trump stated that he intended to impose duties on China, but also signalled that he hoped for more direct contact with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry said at a regular briefing that it believed companies should “decide independently” about their operations and transactions, according to spokesperson Mao Ning.
TikTok has operated in the US for many years and is deeply loved by American users. We hope that the US can earnestly listen to the voice of reason and provide an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for firms operating there.
National security threat
In August 2020, Trump signed an executive order giving ByteDance 90 days to sell TikTok, but then blessed a deal structured as a partnership rather than a divestiture that would have given Oracle and Walmart stakes in the new company. Trump intended to ban the app over concerns that the company was sharing Americans’ personal information with the Chinese government.
Now, Trump said he would likely grant TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban after taking office. Trump’s retention of TikTok represents a shift from the stance he took during his first term.
However, not all members of Trump’s Republican Party agreed with the effort to circumvent the law and “Save TikTok,” with Republican senators Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts releasing a joint statement.
Now that the law has taken effect, there is 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.
Privately held ByteDance is about 60-per-cent owned by institutional investors, such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, with its founders and employees owning 20 per cent each.
