Donald Trump delays US TikTok ban again

Donald Trump has signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the US for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.
It is the third time the president has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on January 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court — took effect.
Advertisement
The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with US ownership that fell apart after China backed out after Mr Trump's tariff announcement.
It is not clear how many times he can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges to fight them.
Mr Trump has gained more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a 'warm spot for TikTok'.
As the extensions continue, it appears less likely that TikTok will be banned in the US any time soon. The decision to keep the site alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court, unlike many of Mr Trump's other executive orders.
Advertisement
Jeremy Goldman, analyst at Emarketer, called TikTok's US situation 'deadline purgatory'.
The whole thing 'is starting to feel less like a ticking clock and more like a looped ringtone. This political Groundhog Day is starting to resemble the debt ceiling drama: a recurring threat with no real resolution'.
Donald Trump (Alex Brandon/AP)
For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the US, and tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to support the app, on the promise that Mr Trump's Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them.
Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.
Advertisement
A recent Pew Research Centre survey found that about a third of Americans supported a ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly a third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they were not sure.
Among those who supported a ban, about eight in 10 cited concerns over users' data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.
Democratic senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration is again 'flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks' posed by a China-controlled TikTok.
'An executive order can't sidestep the law, but that's exactly what the president is trying to do,' he added.
Advertisement

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Independent

28 minutes ago

• The Independent

David Lammy arrives in Geneva to meet Iran's foreign minister for peace push

David Lammy has arrived in Geneva for talks with the Iranian foreign minister and European allies as the UK presses for a diplomatic solution to the Israel-Iran conflict. The Foreign Secretary is meeting Abbas Araghchi on Friday alongside his counterparts from France, Germany and the EU as he seeks to negotiate a settlement before US President Donald Trump decides on whether to take military action against Tehran. In a statement read by his press secretary on Thursday, Mr Trump said there was still 'a substantial chance of negotiations' and said he would make a decision on deploying US forces 'within the next two weeks'. Mr Trump had previously said he 'may' join Israeli strikes against Iran and its nuclear programme, but added: 'I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.' Friday's meeting with the so-called E3 countries follows Mr Lammy's visit to Washington, where he met US secretary of state Marco Rubio in the White House on Thursday evening to discuss 'how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict'. The Foreign Secretary said: 'The situation in the Middle East remains perilous. We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon.' Adding that a 'window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution', Mr Lammy said: 'Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no-one.' Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said on Friday morning the White House had provided a 'very clear timescale now' for the UK and its allies as they push for de-escalation in the Middle East. She also told Times Radio: 'There is this two-week window where the US is offering diplomatic talks. And my counterpart, David Lammy, is over in Geneva today with leading European figures meeting with the Iranian foreign minister. 'We appreciate the seriousness of the situation, but we are hopeful that we will be able to achieve de-escalation and a diplomatic solution. And all of our efforts continue towards that end.' Israeli air strikes reached into the city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea early on Friday, Iranian media reported. Since the conflict erupted last week, at least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group. Meanwhile, at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded. It remains unclear whether the UK would join any military action, although there has been speculation that US involvement could require using the British-controlled base on Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands. The B-2 stealth bombers based there are capable of carrying specialised 'bunker buster' bombs which could be used against Iran's underground nuclear facility at Fordo. Attorney General Lord Hermer is reported to have raised legal concerns about any British involvement in the conflict beyond defending its allies, which could limit the extent of any support for the US if Mr Trump decides to act militarily. Meanwhile, two Labour backbenchers pushed for a 'fresh, tough approach' to Tehran. Jon Pearce and Mike Tapp, chairman and vice-chairman respectively of Labour Friends of Israel, said the UK urgently needed 'a multifaceted diplomatic, economic and national security plan to guard against the Iranian threat and force the regime to change course'. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the pair called for tighter sanctions on Iran, the proscription of the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps and a 'comprehensive diplomatic solution' that 'eliminates once and for all' Iran's nuclear threat.

Reuters

34 minutes ago

• Reuters

Kremlin declines to predict when Putin and Trump may meet face-to-face

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 20 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday it could not predict whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet U.S. President Donald Trump this year given how turbulent the world had become. The Kremlin has repeatedly said that Putin is open to an in-person meeting with Trump, but that the process of setting one up is complex and first requires lengthy preparation at expert level. Trump and Putin have held five phone calls this year, most recently on Saturday, according to public statements from the two sides. When asked about the probability of the two leaders meeting face-to-face sometime this year, Peskov told reporters: "I wouldn't venture to make such predictions." "We live in such a turbulent world that it is impossible to make forecasts even for next week," he said, in an apparent reference to the Israel-Iran conflict. After returning to the White House in January, Trump initially took a softer stance towards Moscow, but in recent months he has grown increasingly frustrated that his push to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine has thus far yielded scant results. Russia said on Monday that the United States had cancelled the next round of bilateral talks on removing "irritants" between the two countries. Peskov said on Friday that Moscow was in constant dialogue with the U.S. about a possible peace settlement for Ukraine, but that a separate track of talks on trying to repair bilateral ties was complex because so many problems had accumulated over the years. He said that U.S. diplomats wanted to link the two sets of negotiations, but that Moscow believed removing "irritants' in bilateral ties would help efforts to make progress on Ukraine. "We hope that in the foreseeable future we will reach agreement on new dates (for a new round of talks on bilateral issues)," said Peskov.

Telegraph

41 minutes ago

• Telegraph

Democrats will not side with Israel against Iran, poll shows

Democrats cannot bring themselves to side with Israel against Iran's authoritarian regime and pursuit of nuclear weapons, according to a new poll shared with The Telegraph. The polling found that a little more than a third sided with Israel in the Middle East, with only eight per cent saying Iran. But some 52 per cent of Democrats in the survey of 1039 registered voters said they could not pick sides between a Jewish democracy or an Islamic theocracy. The issue illustrates how the party is struggling for clear leadership in the wake of their presidential election defeat, with their base shifting far to the left, said James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, which conducted the poll. 'It doesn't take much to shock me any more but I was genuinely gobsmacked by this finding,' he said. 'We know that Democrats have tended to oppose arming Israel, and have expressed concern about Israel's foreign policy. But this poll steps into a totally different order of magnitude: Democrat voters are so coloured by their view of Israel, that they cannot bring themselves to wholly condemn Iran. Instead they opt to sit on the fence.' Kamala Harris, the party's 2024 presidential candidate, lost support among Arab-Americans last year because of the Biden administration's support for Israel's war in Gaza. And the poll results could explain why so many potential 2028 candidates have steered clear of the Israel-Iran conflict and avoided offering their thoughts as they try to work out where Democratic voters stand. The poll was conducted at the start of this week after Israel launched strikes on Iran, prompting a barrage of missiles fired in return. The escalation has taken the Middle East to the brink of a regional war and Donald Trump, US president, is w eighing whether to send heavy bombers to obliterate Tehran's nuclear ambitions. A majority of Americans (59 per cent) said they backed Israel. That figure rose to 80 per cent among Trump voters and to 80 per cent among Republicans more broadly. Democrats said they were unsure. Only 36 per cent said they backed Israel. At the same time, Mr Trump is under intense pressure from many of his allies not to intervene in the conflict. Populists such as Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchor, have accused him of allowing 'warmongers' to get in his ear, after campaigning last year to avoid any future foreign entanglements. The result is the threat of a fracture within the Maga coalition, between its 'America First' wing and more traditionally hawkish Republicans. The new poll suggests there is a reckoning on the other side of the political spectrum as Democrats weigh whether to back Israel in its quest to end Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The party has already struggled with splits over the US role in Gaza, where almost 50,000 have been killed since Israel launched its response to the October 7 Hamas attacks. While Joe Biden's administration backed the Israeli government, progressives including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American congresswoman, described it as a genocide. And the Israeli strikes on Iran triggered opposing responses from senior figures. Jackie Rosen, a Democratic senator from Nevada who sits on the armed services committee, said: 'Israel acted in self-defence against an attack from Iran, and the US must continue to stand with Israel, as it has for decades, at this dangerous moment.' But others condemned the strikes for disrupting negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme. Pramila Jayapal, a congresswoman from the progressive wing of the party, said: 'Netanyahu must not be allowed to pull America into another forever war. Instead, we must immediately push for negotiated de-escalation.' It could prove a particularly tricky needle to thread for some of the party's 'big beasts' who have an eye on the 2028 presidential race. Ms Harris, the former vice-president, Pete Buttigieg, who was Joe Biden's US transportation secretary, and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, have all stayed silent. Mr Johnson added: 'This, coupled with other findings in the poll, suggest that put simply, Democrat voters have a serious problem with the Jewish state of Israel. 'Such a position is so wildly out of step with the American people as a whole that it could cripple Democrat candidates in their campaigns next year - and should be a central concern as Democratic primary seasons get under way.'