If it wasn’t for the reciprocal tariffs the United States imposed on China last week, a deal to sell TikTok would have been final, said President Donald Trump on Sunday while he was aboard Air Force One.
“The report is that we had a deal, pretty much for TikTok, not a deal, but pretty close, and then China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they’d approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs,” AFP quoted Trump as saying.
The future of TikTok, a popular video-sharing app owned by China’s ByteDance, is in jeopardy in the United States where it has 170 million users. A new law passed by the US last year requires TikTok to either find a non-Chinese buyer to operate in the US or face ban.
A day after imposing reciprocal tariffs on as many as 60 countries on April 2, with 34 per cent tariffs on China, Trump extended TikTok’s deadline to find a new buyer by 75 days.
According to Trump, his administration and the company were close to securing a deal with a buyer for TikTok involving multiple investors. However, ByteDance said that there were some “key matters” which needed to be addressed. “An agreement has not been executed” and whatever was decided would be “subject to approval under Chinese law,” the company added, the company said.
In a bid to reform global trade in the United States’ favour, US President Donald Trump delivered on his long-standing promise of imposing reciprocal tariffs on countries that he says have “abused” the US. He imposed a 10 per cent base tariff on almost all US imports, along with separate reciprocal tariffs on 60 countries. China, which was already facing a 20 per cent tariff by Trump over fentanyl trafficking, was hit by additional 34 per cent reciprocal tariffs during the ‘Liberation Day’ announcement.
In response, China retaliated with a 34 percent tariff on the United States, set to come into effect from April 10. “For all imported goods originating from the US, an additional tariff of 34 percent on top of the current applicable tariff rate will be imposed,” Beijing’s finance ministry had said.
China also imposed export controls on many rare-earth elements such as samarium, gadolinium, scandium, yttrium, and more on Friday. These restrictions are expected to hit several US industries which depend on China for rare-earth elements.
With AFP inputs
