US President Donald Trump said Sunday that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for the tariffs imposed by Washington on Beijing last week.
Trump on Friday extended the deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States, allowing 75 more days to find a solution – a day after imposing additional 34 percent duties on all Chinese imports.
“The report is that we had a deal, pretty much for TikTok, not a deal, but pretty close, and then China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they’d approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The hugely popular video-sharing app, which has more than 170 million American users, is under threat from a US law passed last year that orders TikTok to split from its Chinese owner ByteDance or get shut down in the United States.
Trump had insisted his administration was near a deal to find a buyer for TikTok and keep it from shutting down that would involve multiple investors, but gave few details.
Content retrieved from: https://www.firstpost.com/world/tiktok-sale-stalled-as-trump-claims-china-withdrew-over-us-tariffs-extends-deadline-by-75-days-13877752.html.
