President Trump likes TikTok but the Chinese-owned short video app, used by some 170 million Americans, has to move to US ownership, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said on Sunday.
“The President really likes TikTok, and he said it over and over again, because, you know, it was a good way to communicate with young people,” Lutnick said in an interview on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream.
“But let’s face it, you can’t have the Chinese have an app on 100 million American phones, that is just not okay. So, it’s got to move to American ownership, it’s got to move to American technology, American algorithms,” he said. “I know the President is positive towards TikTok, if it can move into American hands.”
Lutnick’s comments follow his warning last week that TikTok will have to stop operating in the U.S. if China does not approve a deal for the app.
He told CNBC on Thursday that US must control the algorithm that makes the social media platform work.
TikTok parent ByteDance has a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform’s US assets.
Last month, President Trump extended by 90 days to Sept. 17, a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US assets of TikTok. Trump’s action took place despite a 2024 law that mandated a sale or shutdown by Jan. 19 of this year if there had not been significant progress.
“China can have a little piece or ByteDance, the current owner, can keep a little piece. But basically, Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm,” Lutnick said.
“If that deal gets approved, by the Chinese, then that deal will happen,” he added. “If they don’t approve it, then TikTok is going to go dark, and those decisions are coming very soon.”
A deal had been in the works this spring that would spin off TikTok’s US operations into a new US-based firm, majority-owned and operated by US investors. This stalled after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump has three times granted reprieves from federal enforcement of the law that mandated the sale or shutdown of TikTok that was supposed to take effect in January.
