JAKARTA In a decision that has begun to feel like an annual tradition, President Donald Trump's administration has again postponed the ban on TikTok in the United States. The popular Chinese video-sharing app has again received "an additional breath," although its long-term fate remains uncertain.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, this is the third time the official ban has been suspended since Trump returned to office in January 2025. In fact, TikTok was banned during the end of Joe Biden's administration, and was given until April 5 to sell its operations to American companies. But the day before the deadline, Trump actually extended the grace period from 75 days to 18 June.
Now, with nearly two weeks remaining, Trump is again signaling there will be another extension this time with the longest distance from the previous deadline.
Interestingly, Trump's attitude towards TikTok now looks much softer than his first term. In the past, he considered the application a national security threat and called for a full ban. Now, Trump calls TikTok an "important tool" for reaching young voters.
"I want to save TikTok," Trump told reporters late May. "TikTok was very good to me."
TikTok became a popular platform for political campaigns and became an effective means for politicians, including Trump, to reach Generation Z and millennials.
Trump had initiated a new company formation scheme called TikTok America 50% of shares will be owned by new US investors, 30% by existing US investors, and the remaining 19.9% by ByteDance. But until now, no official agreement has been formed.
ByteDance also emphasized that all forms of sales or restructuring must obtain approval from the Chinese government, which reportedly dislikes the plan to form TikTok America.
SEE ALSO:
The issue of banning TikTok first emerged in mid-2020 during Trump's first term. However, the ban was not fully realized and was barely heard during the Biden administration, until finally in April 2024, Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to US companies within nine months.
At that time, Trump, who at that time had just been re-elected, promised that TikTok would still be accessible to the American people.
Now, with the ban being postponed and no clear agreement yet, the future of TikTok in the US remains hanging between geopolitical pressures and domestic political calculations.
Whether this is just a campaign strategy or will lead to real decisions, the public and TikTok users still have to wait for the next chapter of this seemingly endless story.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
