TikTok Will Be Banned in September if China Doesn’t Approve U.S. App Sale, Trump Official Warns

The US TikTok ban that was scheduled for September has been delayed by President Trump for another 90 days, extending the deadline to mid-September.

via: Variety

Howard Lutnick, President Trump’s Commerce Secretary, said TikTok will go dark for the video app’s millions of American users unless China agrees by a Sept. 17 deadline to a deal that will give the U.S. owners majority control over the app.

“We’ve made the decision. You can’t have Chinese control and have something on 100 million American phones,” Lutnick said Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” If China doesn’t approve the deal, “then TikTok is going to go dark.”

“Basically, Americans will have control” of TikTok in the U.S., Lutnick said. “Americans will own the technology. Americans will control the algorithm. That’s something Donald Trump is willing to do.”

Under a U.S. law that went into effect Jan. 19, 2025, it is illegal for American companies to host or distribute TikTok in the country as long as it remains controlled by Chinese parent company ByteDance. The legislation passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, on fears that the popular video entertainment app’s ties to China‘s communist regime make it a national security risk. It was signed into law by President Biden.

Trump last month issued his third executive order delaying enforcement of the law until Sept. 17 while members of his administration attempt to hammer out a deal to restructure TikTok U.S.’s ownership in a way that complies with the law — while also being an arrangement the Chinese government will approve.

In an interview with Fox News that aired June 29, Trump claimed his administration has identified a group of “very, very wealthy people” who will buy TikTok in the U.S. “I think I’ll need, probably, China’s approval, and I think President Xi [Jinping] will probably do it,” he said in the interview. However, Trump did not reveal who the purported buyers are. Trump told host Maria Bartiromo he would say “in about two weeks” who the buyers are, but to this point there have been such announcements.

Trump, in the final months of his first administration, tried unsuccessfully to ban TikTok unless its ownership was transferred to U.S. companies. But after the 2024 election Trump said “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” because “there are those who say” the app helped drive support for him among young voters.

ByteDance has said 60% of its ownership is represented by global institutional investors including BlackRock, General Atlantic and Susquehanna, with 20% owned by its Chinese founders and 20% by employees including those in the United States. The U.S. divest-or-ban law prohibits distribution of any app in which companies or individuals located in a country that is a “foreign adversary” to the United States “directly or indirectly own” at least a 20% stake.

At a congressional hearing in March 2023, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said, “ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government” and said there is an “inaccurate belief that TikTok’s corporate structure makes it beholden to the Chinese government or that it shares information about U.S. users with the Chinese government. This is emphatically untrue.”