Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on March 14 that President Donald Trump wants to solidify a deal on TikTok ownership under the existing deadline.
“It’s in Donald Trump’s hands. He is going to make the decision how he wants to play it,” Lutnick said in an interview with Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”
“And you know Donald Trump. He wants to do it in the timeframe that he was given.”
Lutnick said Trump “doesn’t like to ask for extensions” and is “going to try to get it done in the timeframe that he has ... that’s number one.”
His comments come just weeks before Trump’s April 5 deadline, which requires TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to divest from the social media app’s U.S. operations or face a potential ban in the United States.
The president set that deadline via a January executive order, which gave ByteDance 75 days to reach an acquisition deal after Congress enacted a Jan. 19 divest-or-ban deadline amid national security concerns.
TikTok—a video-sharing platform with around 170 million American users and 2 billion users worldwide—uses a powerful algorithm to recommend videos and create personalized content feeds.
Security experts, politicians, and government agencies have long warned that the Chinese communist regime can access the vast amount of data collected by TikTok and use the app’s algorithm to shape U.S. culture and public opinion.
One day before Trump’s inauguration, Congress’s deadline caused TikTok to go dark in the United States for several hours. After Trump vowed to order an extension for TikTok once back in office, the platform was quickly brought back to U.S. phone app stores.
“We have a lot of interest in TikTok. China is going to play a role,” he said, “So hopefully, China will approve of the deal.”
Lutnick told Fox Business there was no guarantee that Trump would reach a deal by April 5.
“He doesn’t control everything, but he is going to try his best,” he said.
The commerce secretary was also asked about Trump’s proposal to create a sovereign wealth fund to purchase TikTok.
Without offering details, Lutnick said it will “make a ton of money and not take risk.”
Several buyers have expressed interest in purchasing TikTok’s U.S.-based operations, including bids from YouTube celebrity Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson and a joint offer from “Shark Tank” star and investor Kevin O'Leary and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.
