Trump Likes TikTok, But Apps Must Move To US Ownership

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, likes the TikTok application. (photo: x @WhiteHouse)

JAKARTA The President of the United States, Donald Trump, likes the TikTok application. But according to the US Trade Minister, Howard Lutnick, China's short video platform must immediately move to ownership of the United States if it is to continue operating in its country.

"The president really likes TikTok, and he has said that over and over again, because according to him TikTok is a great way to communicate with the younger generation," Lutnick said in an interview at Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream.

However, Lutnick insists that national security issues are a major concern. "But let's face the reality: we can't let Chinese-owned apps be on 100 million phones belonging to Americans. That's clearly unacceptable," said Lutnick.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, has long been the target of concerns by the United States government regarding the potential misuse of user data by the Chinese government. The app is known to have around 170 million active users in the United States alone.

Lutnick added that the only solution is for TikTok to move to ownership and technology entirely from America. "It has to move to American ownership, it has to use American technology, American algorithms. I know the President will fully support it if TikTok is in America's hands."

This statement comes amid increasing pressure from the White House and the US Congress to ensure that applications widely used among the younger generation of America do not jeopardize the security of national data.

Previously, the Trump administration in its first term had also threatened to ban TikTok if it was not sold to American companies, even though the move was not carried out completely. Now, with Trump returning to office, the issue has surfaced again.

To date, there is no certainty whether ByteDance is willing to sell TikTok, or to whom the app might be sold. Several major technology companies such as Oracle and Microsoft were said to be interested in buying TikTok operations in the US a few years ago.

With the increasing tension between the US and China in various sectors ranging from trade, technology, to geopolitical the future of TikTok in America seems to be one of the important issues in the near future.

The US government has not set an exact time limit for when the ownership transfer process should take place, but the political pressure from the two major parties in Congress seems to be accelerating the decision-making process.