Image credit: Solen Feyissa

A new report says that TikTok’s divest-or-ban deadline for operations in the U.S. is being extended by President Trump for the third time.

5 years ago, TikTok‘s video app faced an imminent ban from app stores in the U.S.. The decision had been led by then President, Donald Trump. 5 years on and TikTok remains, but it is now Trump who is postponing a TikTok ban ordered by U.S. congress under Joe Biden.

That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, who report that Trump is postponing the deadline of June 19th for TikTok to divest its U.S. operations to another company or face a nationwide ban. The deadline has already been postponed twice since congress announced their demands, with an original deadline date of January this year.

The Wall Street Journal reports that trade policy between the U.S. and China is the leading cause of stalls in a sale to an American entity. This has been helped none by Trump’s tariffs, which remain higher for China than many other countries. Negotiations over tariffs between the U.S. and China continue to take place this week.

There are plenty of willing buyers in the U.S. for TikTok. Whilst Trump had put forward Elon Musk earlier in the year, Musk said: “I have not put in a bid for TikTok. I don’t have any plans for what I would do if I had TikTok.” Now, with Trump and Musk’s fallout, the president likely isn’t encouraging that deal anymore.

The last two deadline postponements have seen President Trump provide 75 days longer for parent company ByteDance to act before being banned. Whilst the third postponement hasn’t been confirmed, if true it will likely be another 75 days of leeway for ByteDance, giving them until the 2nd of September.

Last week, Trump told reporters: “I’d like to save TIkTok. I mean, TikTok was very good to me.”