US TikTok Deal Remains in Limbo as Deadline Nears Once Again

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So what’s going on with the TikTok sell-off in the U.S., which, by law, has to happen, or TikTok has to exit the U.S. market?

Well, according to President Trump’s latest extension of the TikTok sell-off bill, which Trump enacted by executive order on September 16th, TikTok has till December 16th, or tomorrow, to have an arrangement ready to go with an American partner that will separate TikTok from Chinese control.

Which is not going to happen, because despite the Trump Administration reporting that a U.S. TikTok deal was “imminent” back in September, no deal has materialized, with U.S. negotiators reportedly making no progress in a deal, even though they thought that they were close to a final agreement.

Chinese officials have apparently not even discussed the details of such, so again, despite the White House holding a press conference to announce that they had “saved” TikTok in the U.S., nothing seems to have been confirmed from the Chinese side.

So TikTok is done, right? TikTok will go dark in the U.S. on Tuesday at midnight, based on the detail included in the official executive order, issued on September 16th. Right?

Well, apparently not. As TikTok has informed me, there was actually a second executive order issued on the 25th of September which gives TikTok till January 23rd to work out a deal.

As per the second EO (signed by President Trump):

“A plan has been presented to me to undergo a qualified divestiture of TikTok’s United States operations, as outlined in a framework agreement. Under this Framework Agreement, TikTok’s United States application will be operated by a newly established joint venture based in the United States. It will be majority-owned and controlled by United States persons and will no longer be controlled by any foreign adversary, since ByteDance Ltd. and its affiliates will own less than 20 percent of the entity, with the remainder being held by certain investors.”

This is the plan that Trump and his team signed off on back in September, which details an agreed framework for the TikTok U.S. sell-off.

But it seems that “agreed” in this context is just what the Trump team has agreed to put forward to Chinese officials, not what the CCP has given approval for.

But even so, based on this proposal, which again, has not been confirmed, nor agreed to by Chinese representatives, the second EO states that:

“To permit the contemplated divestiture to be completed, the Attorney General shall not take any action on behalf of the United States to enforce the Act for 120 days from the date of this order.  During this period, the Department of Justice shall take no action to enforce the Act.”

120 days from September 25th, the date this second order was issued, would be January 23rd, 2026. Which, by that time, would mean that TikTok’s stay of execution will have been extended by more than a year via Trump’s executive orders, with the Senate-approved law still waiting to be enacted by the various authorities.

So, apparently, TikTok won’t “go dark” this week, but then again, based on the wording of the second EO, it probably should.

As noted, the second order issued by Trump here relates to an agreed divestiture, based on the framework put forward by the U.S. But that framework hasn’t been agreed to, so technically, this shouldn’t be in effect, right?

I don’t assume to know the full extent of the legal specifications here, but it seems like this second order was issued on the expectation that an agreement would be established, but since it hasn’t been, it seems that it’s likely not applicable, at least in regards to the specific wording of the document.

Which would mean that TikTok’s time would be up this Tuesday, but again, that seemingly is not the case, as there have been no announcements or discussions of such over the past week.

So, in summary, I don’t know when, if ever, TikTok will be banned in the U.S., or if it will, and seemingly, nobody else does either. But based on the second EO outlined above, it seems that the app will have a few more weeks before something needs to happen here.