Trump signs executive order to pause US TikTok ban

Donald Trump has signed an executive order temporarily suspending the sale of the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, as mandated by a law passed in the US last year.

Trump’s order was one of a raft signed by the new president on his first day back in the White House. The order instructed Trump’s attorney general not to take any action to enforce the law mandating a sale or closure of the giant social media app in the US for a period of 75 days.

It said that pause would allow “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans”.

Advocates of banning the video-sharing platform have long cited security concerns, given its ownership by ByteDance, a company controlled by the Chinese government, and the potential for personal information about millions of American users to be used for spying or propaganda purposes.

Trump was critical of TikTok on such grounds in his first term in power and tried to ban it himself.

He has since changed his position due to factors including his own popularity on the platform and use of it during last year’s presidential campaign, and reported representations by Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and Republican donor.

Republicans in Congress did not change their position with Trump, however, and under a bipartisan law signed by Joe Biden last April, TikTok was mandated to sell its assets to a US-based company by 19 January this year. Under the law, the deadline could be extended by 90 days if a sale is in process.

ByteDance says it will not sell. One interested US bid involves Frank McCourt, a billionaire who once owned the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, and Kevin O’Leary, an investor famous for appearing on Shark Tank, ABC’s business reality show.

The US supreme court heard arguments on the matter earlier this month, after Trump asked for a stay. Justices appeared minded to let the law stand, despite representations from champions of free speech.

Trump’s petition to the court did not cite such concerns, his lawyers instead claiming: “President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government.”

Experts, however, doubt Trump’s powers. Last week, Alan Rozenshtein, a former national security adviser to the US Department of Justice now at the University of Minnesota told the Washington Post executive orders “are not magical documents. They’re just press releases with nicer stationery.

“TikTok will still be banned, and it will still be illegal for Apple and Google to do business with them. But it will make the president’s intention not to enforce the law that much more official.”