- Donald Trump has extended the deadline to make a deal with TikTok by another 75 days.
- This after China reportedly said it wouldn’t sign an existing deal because of the tariffs Trump announced last week.
- With those tariffs obliterating the stock market’s value hourly, the question of who will buy TikTok becomes a question of who can buy TikTok.
TikTok was meant to be banned in the US on Saturday, but thanks to a last-minute stay of execution, the short video platform lived on.
As you’ll recall, TikTok went dark in the US earlier this year but was brough back online thanks to an executive order from President Donald Trump. Now, the US President has stepped in once again to delay TikTok’s ban in the US.
There has been much speculation about which massive firm or big tech player would be offering up the bones to buy TikTok, but whatever deal exists behind closed doors seems to be moving a lot slower than Trump appears to have imagined it would.
As such, the President has had to issue another delay of execution.
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days. We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!). This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security! We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday evening.
This is an about-face from Trump after stating last week that the TikTok deal would be finalised by the deadline. However, we suspect the president had little to no understanding of how poorly the reaction to his “reciprocal” tariffs would be.
It seems, as reported by Reuters, that Trump was indeed correct in that China isn’t pleased about the tariffs imposed on it and has now said it won’t approve the deal because of these tariffs.
Trump crowed that if he reduced the tariffs, the deal would be done in “15 minutes” but we somehow doubt that is the case. This isn’t just because China can be stubborn but with each hour that passes, more and more value from the US stock market is obliterated.
On Wednesday, before the tariffs were announced, the Nasdaq Composite sat at $17 596.71, today it’s at $15 529.03, an 8 percent drop in value. Zooming out further, the story gets even more grim, with the current value 13 percent lower than it was six months ago. In fact, the only time you see green on stock trackers for the Nasdaq is by zooming out to five years ago, which was the midst of the pandemic which sent the global economy into a tailspin
Investors are worried, and more so, citizens are worried.
Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs, which appear to be based on the trade deficit between the US and any given country divided by the imports. Given that America is a massive importer, this means that everything in the US is about to become a lot more expensive. The hope is that American businesses will be able to compete with international traders, but many believe this to be a pipedream that will instead trigger a recession and, ultimately, a depression.
While there may very well have been a deal for a big company or techbro to purchase TikTok, we have to wonder whether any of them have the requisite funds to make such a purchase. Even if they do, once again, China isn’t sweet on the deal anymore, so Trump is going to have to adjust tariffs, which could ultimately trigger more retractions as world leaders knock on the golfer’s door.
But it seems Trump isn’t planning on offering respite to the tariffs.
“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic,” the president told his followers on Saturday.
However, Americans haven’t even felt the effects of the tariffs yet and have already descended on the streets at the weekend for the Hands Off protests. Citizens took to the streets in all 50 states to protest against Elon Musk and Trump’s attack on American rights, freedoms and the economy. We suspect that once the weight of these tariffs hits home, the protests will be even larger.
Much like TikTok trends, there is no way to know how exactly this deal is going to shake out, if it even happens at all. While Trump could just sign a new executive order to stay TikTok’s execution in the US every 74 days, that’s not viable, and we suspect other organs of his administration would take issue with that.
Ironically, much of the criticism against Donald Trump and his tariffs is happening on TikTok. Since they were announced, folks have been dragging right-wing talking heads for moving the goalposts and failing to understand how damaging the tariffs could be.
While America is a big market for TikTok, if the country is in economic turmoil and emulating North Korea at every turn it can, it may be best for TikTok to put its time and money into another market and leave the US behind.
