Trump signs executive order delaying TikTok ban, threatens tariffs if no deal

On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump followed through on his campaign promise to delay a controversial TikTok divest-or-ban law by signing an executive order, warning that he would impose significant tariffs on China if Beijing failed to approve a deal regarding the app.

“I may not do the deal. I may do the deal. TikTok is worthless, worthless if I don’t approve it, it has to close. I learned that from the people that own it”, Trump said on Monday.

“With TikTok, I have the right to either sell it or close it, and we’ll make that determination,” he said, suggesting that “if we wanted to make a deal with TikTok, and it was a good deal, and China wouldn’t approve it, then I think ultimately they’d approve it because we’d put tariffs on China”.

Trump added: “Maybe, I’m not saying I would, but you certainly could do that. And if we said, well, ‘you’re not going to approve it’, then that’s a certain hostility, and we’ll put tariffs of 25, 30,40, 50 per cent, even 100 per cent.”

The executive order effectively buys time – 75 days – for the administration to explore alternative solutions to address the app’s data privacy concerns without resorting to an outright ban. It also opens the door for further negotiations with ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, in hopes of finding a resolution that satisfies national security requirements.

TikTok’s chief executive Chew Shou Zi was spotted next to Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, during his swearing-in ceremony in the Capital rotunda. Chew also met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s resort in Florida, on December 16.