President Donald Trump said he would “probably” extend the deadline for the sale for social video app TikTok if a deal is not reached by April 5.
Trump said Thursday there was “a lot of interest” in TikTok and that “right now we have at least another month, so we don’t need an extension” in response to questions at the White House about the app’s status. At the same time, Trump said he is willing to extend the deadline if necessary.
“If I needed an extension, I’d probably get it extended,” Trump said.
“We have a lot of interest in TikTok. And China is going to play a role, so hopefully China will approve of the deal, but they are going to play a role,” he added, without specifying the interested buyers.
A bipartisan law previously set a Jan. 19 deadline for Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. to sell the app and the service’s US operations temporarily went dark. But Trump upon taking office signed an executive order offering a reprieve for 75 additional days.
Since then, Trump has said that he wants to help broker a sale — and that he believes the US government should be granted a 50% stake in the company as a condition.
It’s not clear if Trump could legally offer a significant additional extension under the law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, without an agreement.