The Trump administration is meeting today to discuss the TikTok case. The app, threatened with being banned from the United States by April 5 if no sale occurs, is coveted by several investors. The list is long, including Oracle, Microsoft, the Blackstone fund, as well as private equity and venture capital firms, and Perplexity, a startup backed by Amazon that wants to open the source code of the "For You" feed.
"The decision will be my decision."
Donald Trump has repeatedly stated his desire to close the TikTok case. He even said on Wednesday, March 26, that he "maybe give a small discount or something." He also said he did not rule out the possibility to reduce tariffs on imports of Chinese products if a deal is reached.
A few days later, on Sunday, he said he had "a lot of potential buyers," arguing that the social network " generates a lot of interest", while emphasizing that he "would like to see TikTok stay alive". The opportunity was also to clarify that "the decision will be my decision". Comments that may question the interest of the daytime meeting.
The next day, Monday, March 31, during an exchange with journalists in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was more nuanced about a possible deal, indicating: " I could extend [the deadline] if I want.".
A divestiture already postponed
Wednesday's meeting is expected to bring together Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Security Advisor Mike Waltz and U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Among them, JD Vance shows some confidence in a deal: a certain confidence in a deal: "There will most likely be a high-level deal that I think will satisfy our security concerns, allowing for a separate entity separate American TikTok company.".
It remains to be seen what TikTok's parent company, China's ByteDance, thinks about all this. At the time of the statement, the company had not responded to Reuters' requests for comment.
Congress originally set a January 19th divestiture deadline, but no agreement was reached. Donald Trump signed an executive order extending this deadline by 75 days. The social network was then suspended for a few hours.
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