Trump signs order delaying enforcement of TikTok ban for 75 days

President Donald Trump, on his first day back at the White House, signed a series of executive orders, including one ordering the U.S. Attorney General to refrain for a period of 75 days from enforcing a federal law that criminalizes hosting and distribution of TikTok.

Trump, in the order issued Monday, Jan. 20, wrote that “I have sole constitutional responsibility for the national security of the United States, the conduct of foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.” He wrote that the “unfortunate timing” of the TikTok ban taking effect on January 19 – which makes it illegal to distribute the app in the US, as Chinese parent company ByteDance has not not divest its stake in TikTok – “interferes with my ability to assess the national security and foreign policy implications of the law’s prohibitions before they take effect.”

Trump’s executive order also directs the United States Attorney General to “send a letter to each (TikTok) provider stating that there have been no violations of the law and that there is no liability for all conduct” from January 19 until 75 years. day extension.

However, despite Trump’s order, legal experts say tech partners that break the law could still face significant fines, amounting to $5,000 per user, meaning they could face up to $850 billion in sanctions (given that TikTok claims to have 170 million users in the United States).

According to Matt Schettenhelm, litigation and policy analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, vendors that “intentionally violate federal law” by flouting the TikTok ban will see their legal exposure “increase from $0 to $850 billion.” It’s “on a promise from a president who has flip-flopped on this very issue, and under a statute of limitations that lasts beyond his presidency,” Schettenhelm wrote in an article on Trump’s first presidential term, he unsuccessfully tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to American buyers (also for national security reasons) via executive orders that were rejected by federal courts.

On Sunday, before Trump signed the order extending the TikTok ban, Senators Rick Cotton (R-Ark.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) warned in a joint statement that violators of the ban would risk “ruinous bankruptcy” if they facilitated the ban. Operation or distribution of TikTok in the United States. “Now that the law has entered into force, there is no legal basis for any ‘extension’ of its effective date,” the senators said.

“Any company that hosts, distributes, maintains or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars in ruinous liability under the law, not only from the DOJ, but also in under securities law, shareholder suits and state AGs. Think about it,” Cotton wrote on X.

TikTok, after shutting down the app in the United States on Saturday, reinstated its service on Sunday, citing Trump’s pledge not to enforce the ban when it applies to technology partners. “Thanks to the efforts of President Trump, TikTok is back in the United States! » TikTok said in a message to users on January 19.

Oracle, which has a deal to host TikTok’s U.S. user data, appears to be among the vendors working with TikTok to ensure the app’s continued operation in the country. (Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.) As of press time, TikTok is still not available in the Apple and Google app stores.

Alan Rozenshtein, a constitutional scholar at the University of Minnesota Law School, told NPR that Trump’s executive order cannot override an act of Congress and that the TikTok ban is currently in effect. The president’s order “does not prevent, say, Oracle, from violating the law — which it is currently doing, as far as I know,” Rozenshtein said.

According to the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, for the January 19 date to be extended, the US president must have certified that ByteDance has “binding legal agreements” to divest its stake in TikTok . So far, there is no evidence of such an agreement.

Trump said his administration needed to postpone the ban on TikTok to find a solution that would address national security concerns and make the app legal in the United States.

Trump proposed that the United States “hold a 50% stake in a joint venture” with the “current and/or new owners of TikTok,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. He added: “With our approval, it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars, if not billions. »

To date, ByteDance has not indicated any desire to sell TikTok. It’s hard to imagine the Chinese internet giant suddenly agreeing to hand over half of TikTok to the U.S. government, let alone China approving such a deal. ByteDance said 60% of its ownership was represented by “global institutional investors,” including Blackrock, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group.

If TikTok were to be 50% owned by the United States, that would obviously give advertisers pause, according to ad industry analyst Brian Wieser. “Beyond the very problematic social issue of the emergence of such a new form of ‘state-controlled media’ in the United States, to the extent that the platform sniffs propaganda, advertisers who would support such service would find themselves faced with a new set of concerns to consider when developing their media plans,” Wieser wrote in his Madison & Wall newsletter.