By Mallory Mattingly
Will TikTok finally be banned on June 19? Not if President Donald Trump has anything to say about it.
TikTok went dark in the U.S. for a few hours earlier this year on Jan. 19 after its parent company, ByteDance, failed to divest its U.S. assets, as required by a law signed by President Joe Biden in 2024. After taking office in January, President Trump extended TikTok’s deadline to divest or be banned. That date came in April, when the president extended it again to its new deadline of June 19.
Trump has signaled that he would push the deadline back for a third time, partly because of how the platform helped him connect with younger voters during the 2024 presidential election.
“I’d like to see it done,” he told NBC News of making a deal with the platform. “I have a little sweet spot in my heart because, as you know, I won young people by 36 points. That’s a lot. No Republican ever won young people, and I won it by 36 points, and I focused on TikTok. So perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok. TikTok is — it’s very interesting, but it’ll be protected. It’ll be very strongly protected. But if it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension, might not need it.”
According to USA Today, Trump could give a 90-day extension for ByteDance to sell the app. However, the other two extensions he put on the deal were only 75 days, so he will likely stick with what he’s done twice before.
The outlet also noted that a plan to spinoff TikTok’s American “operation into a new firm owned and operated by U.S. investors” was in the works but “was put on hold, according to Reuters, after China would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on its goods.”
However, according to the president, “we actually have a deal. We have a group of purchasers, very substantial people. They’re going to pay a lot of money. It’s a good thing for us. It’s a good thing for China. It’s going to be, I think, very good.”
But can the president simply keep pushing back the deadline?
Related: Constitutional Law Expert Calls TikTok Ban ‘Extremely Harmful’ First Amendment
According to one legal expert, it’s complicated, but unless Congress gets involved, there’s nothing illegal about Trump’s extensions.
“On the one hand, the president, of course, has to enforce the laws Congress has passed, but the TikTok case is a little interesting, because it isn’t just commerce,” John Acevedo, Emory University School of Law professor, told Spectrum News in April. “The law was targeting the fact that TikTok, as a Chinese corporation, poses security risks. As long as the president isn’t directly subverting the law, they do have leeway in how it’s implemented.”
“I could see there being a point where Congress could pass a new law giving him a firm deadline,” he added. “As of now, as long as this continues to be tied to foreign relations in the negotiations with China, he can probably delay it a fairly significant amount of time. There’s no bright line rule in the law, unfortunately, that says a president must start enforcing a law by a certain date.”
As the June 19 deadline approaches, it remains to be seen what exactly Trump’s, TikTok’s and lawmakers’ next moves are.
Read Next: TikTok Ban Won’t Be Extended, Expert Says
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