Story
Trump threatens that TikTok will 'shut down' on September 15 unless it is purchased by the American group.
President Donald Trump says that TikTok would be out of business in the United States on 15 September if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it and provides the US Treasury Department with "a lot of money" to back up his earlier assertion that he intended to "bar" the device over the weekend. This followed news that Microsoft has secured a 45-day client takeover period, something that was reported in a blog post yesterday.
Trump announced the White House news today and elaborated on how he believes that Microsoft or any other "big," "secure," and "very American" company should buy TikTok.
He claimed that it would acquire the whole business from ByteDance — not only the activities in the U.S. , Canada, Australia , and New Zealand — because I believe purchasing 30% is difficult.
The President also claimed that any deal would have to send "a very substantial portion" of the price to the treasury department. He did not clarify what this meant, but he gave an interesting analogy between the US government's corporate arrangement and the arrangement between the landlord and the homeowner. "So they have no freedom until we grant them to them, and if we grant them the freedoms, then they have to come to this land.
It's sort of like a landlord-in-law [relationship]. In a mortgage the occupant wants nothing to do with it, "Trump said.
He states that TikTok will shut down on September 15th unless Microsoft or someone else is willing to purchase it and make an acceptable offer so that the Treasury, I think you 'd say, can receive a lot of revenue from the United States. Microsoft's statement about buying TikTok also related to providing sufficient economic incentives to the United States, including the United States Treasury.
The Trump administration has been circulating a "ban" on TikTok for a few weeks without much explanation, citing a combination of possible national security risks and a willingness to sanction China for treating coronavirus. In the past week, the administration has agreed to allow ByteDance to spin off TikTok — something that the Executive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) can need.
CFIUS will penalize ByteDance if it doesn't auction off TikTok, but Trump's "ban" wording has even more sweeping consequences. There is practically no precedent for the U.S. government to simply restrict U.S. access to an device , especially one that is not associated with any substantive infringements specifically relevant to the prohibition. Trump has also not explained in detail how this kind of American equivalent to China's Great Firewall would have an effect. However, the spin-off of TikTok — particularly by Microsoft — seems increasingly likely.
