United States President Donald Trump has said he may reduce tariffs on China if its government approves a deal to sell TikTok, as the deadline for a potential sale approaches.
The U.S. is set to ban TikTok unless it is sold to a non-Chinese buyer by 5 April, under legislation passed last year. While Vice President JD Vance has said he expects TikTok will find a U.S. buyer by the deadline, TikTok parent company ByteDance has not said it is willing to sell.
“With respect to TikTok, and China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly in the form of an approval, maybe, and I think they'll do that,” Trump said. “Maybe I'll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done.”
The U.S. increased tariffs on all imports from China to 20% earlier this month. A new slate of tariffs will also go into effect from 3 April, which will cover goods like vehicles and target nations with reciprocal tariffs.
A law was passed in April 2024 that would ban TikTok due to national security concerns unless it agreed to divest from ByteDance. ByteDance said at the time that it would not sell the app.
Two major consortiums have lodged bids for TikTok in recent months. The People’s Bid for TikTok, organised by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, includes World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, while the American Investor Consortium includes Employer.com CEO Jesse Tinsley and YouTuber MrBeast.
Oracle, artificial intelligence search company Perplexity AI, and conservative video and website hosting platform Rumble have all bid for TikTok this month. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Omnivest Financial CEO Reid Rasner, and former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick have floated separate bids for TikTok.
"There will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise”, Vance said earlier this month. Trump said the administration was in discussion with four possible bidders, but did not identify them.
The deadline to sell TikTok was originally 19 January. Trump approved an extension by executive order upon taking office, although the law did not include a provision to do so.
Three Democratic senators asked the White House to seek approval from Congress for an additional extension this week.
ByteDance’s total valuation is estimated at US$315 billion. The company owns video editing app CapCut and news aggregator Toutiao, as well as TikTok and its Chinese counterpart app Douyin.
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