TikTok receives a late reprieve on U. S. demand for a ban on app
The Trump administration pulled back from its threat to ban the viral videosharing app TikTok in the U. S., as the dispute winds its way through the court system and a proposed sale hangs in limbo.
For months, the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance Ltd., has faced the prospect of a U. S. ban starting Thursday. But judges have blocked those prohibitions from going into effect. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that it would comply with those court rulings for the time being, even as the government appeals.
The TikTok prohibition “HAS BEEN ENJOINED, and WILL NOT GO INTO EFFECT, pending further legal developments,” the Commerce Department said in a document published in the federal register.
Separately, ByteDance has challenged an order from the Treasury Department to sell TikTok or face unspecified penalties. The U. S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Thursday gave ByteDance and the Trump administration Dec. 14 and Dec. 28 deadlines to file documents in the case.
When it filed the petition Tuesday, TikTok said the government had not responded to its latest efforts to strike a compromise and prevent an enforced sale. It’s not clear if anything has developed since to extend the deadline, but the court order didn’t allude to any new arrangement.
ByteDance had sought U. S. approval for a deal to sell a stake in the app to Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. before the Nov. 12 deadline. But the agreement appears to be in limbo. Before filing its petition in Washington this week, ByteDance requested a 30- day extension from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U. S., or Cfius, that is overseen by the Treasury Department, to keep working toward a solution. That request went unanswered, according to court papers.
Lawyers for TikTok and officials at the Treasury Department didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Trump has made the fight over TikTok a central front in his broader efforts to crack down on the influence of China’s technology industry in the U. S. Trump first ordered a TikTok sale in August, and threatened to ban the app if ByteDance couldn’t reach an agreement with an American company.
He hasn’t said anything about TikTok since the election. But on Thursday Trump issued an executive order prohibiting U. S. investments in Chinese firms determined to be owned or controlled by the country’s military.
In September, a judge in Washington blocked a portion of the ban that would have prevented new downloads of the app. And on Oct. 30, a Pennsylvania judge issued a temporary injunction on rules that would have prevented third- party companies from providing online infrastructure that allows TikTok to function smoothly.
The status of the Cfius process for a sale is less clear. If the government reaches an accord with the company, it could exercise discretion around enforcement timing, said Aimen Mir, a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and a former deputy assistant secretary for investment security at Treasury.