Trump tariffs thwart TikTok takeover as China digs in heels

Video app's future once again caught between trade war and political whiplash

World War Fee A deal to sell off TikTok's US operations to White House-approved owners appears to have hit a tariff-shaped roadblock, with the Chinese government signalling it won't allow the move.

On Friday, President Trump posted on his Truth Social site that the deadline for an agreement regarding TikTok's fate has been extended by another 75 days following the announcement of new trade tariffs imposed on all imports to the US last week.

"We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs," he wrote.

The deadline for some arrangement over TikTok to be hammered out or it would face an outright ban in America was set for April 5 after being extended once by Trump in January already.

A deal was said to be in the pipeline and just hours away from being announced, but the Chinese government, which would have to give its approval for any sell-off of all or part of the social media platform, is understood to want negotiations on tariffs before it will consider granting its assent.

China also hit back at the US with its own retaliatory tariffs and new restrictions on so-called rare earth minerals, some of which are key ingredients in components used for various tech industries.

Trump has hinted he'd cut tariffs if Beijing lets owner ByteDance sell the video sharing app, according to The Financial Times.

The Trump administration was considering a proposal from various interested parties to acquire the biz, with private equity firms such as Blackstone and Silver Lake taking 50 percent and Oracle supplying the infrastructure, while existing investors would have another 30 percent and ByteDance would continue to hold the rest.

It was even suggested last week that online retailing giant Amazon was preparing to throw its hat into the ring with an offer for TikTok.

It is roughly a year since the US House of Representatives passed the act of legislation that compels ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok's US operations or face being banned from operating in the country.

The reasons given for this were the usual hackneyed excuses about national security, with TikTok apparently considered a danger as it might be used for surveillance of US users (oh, the irony) and also to covertly try and influence them.

Even more ironic, the original idea to ban the video sharing platform came from President Trump himself during his first term in office, yet he opposed the move once the legislation was finally passed, fearing that TikTok's removal might hand even more power to Facebook, which he's made no secret of disliking.

Now it seems that the biggest barrier to America getting a version of TikTok that is "freed" from Chinese control is Trump's own tariff scheme, unless the President can pull out of the bag something to please the Beijing government before June 19, which is when the next 75-day extension is set to expire. ®

Reader alert: President has now threatened further tariffs on China unless Beijing scraps a retaliatory levy