Can Trump Broker a TikTok Sale Before the April 5 Deadline?

The president seems optimistic. It's not clear why.

TikTok's parent company ByteDance has until April 5 to divest of its U.S. operations, per a deadline that President Donald Trump set in January. Failure to do so means TikTok will be banned in the U.S. market, or at least that's what is supposed to happen under last year's Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. And Trump is reportedly saying that a sale will happen before then, though the White House has provided few details.

ByteDance was originally supposed to divest by January 19, 2025, but Trump issued an executive order extending this requirement by 75 days.

We're almost there, and no updates about a potential sale have been made public. And while Trump told reporters on Sunday that "there's tremendous interest in Tiktok" from potential buyers, he didn't mention anything about ByteDance's interest level in them.

The Trump administration is meeting today to chat about potential investors, according to reporting by CBS News' Jennifer Jacobs and Sara Cook. "The admin is finalizing plans for potential investors that could include Blackstone and Oracle, as well as a long list of other investors that will likely involve blue chip private equity firms, venture capital firms, and major investors in the technology industry," Jacobs posted on X. Vice President J.D. Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are expected at the Oval Office meeting today. "It's unclear if Mr. Trump will approve the strategy or not," Jacobs added.

That we're three days out from the sale deadline and proposals are still being finalized doesn't seem like a great sign. But nothing about the way this has played out has been optimal.

The act that could ban TikTok is a speech-infringing nightmare that also hands the president power to ban all sorts of apps. It specifically calls out TikTok based on supposed national security threats, but lawmakers and federal officials only speak of these "threats" in theoretical terms without pointing to any existing actions by ByteDance or the Chinese government that credibly threaten U.S. security interests.

Trump appears to want to stop the ban from taking place, which is good. ("I'd like to see Tiktok remain alive," he told reporters on Sunday.) But there's only so much the executive branch can do here, since we're talking about an act of Congress.

It would take another act of Congress to stop the sale-or-ban ultimatum from going into effect. And while Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.) have introduced companion repeal bills, they have attracted a total of one co-sponsor (Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie).

Trump can try to broker a deal that's amenable to ByteDance, but it's unclear if that's possible. ByteDance has already gone to court over this (and lost) and, so far, not shown much interest in complying with these ridiculous demands.

"We're hearing a lot of confidence from the Trump administration about getting a deal done by the deadline, which is odd considering how little we know about the specifics and how complicated the terms are likely to be," said Damian Rollison, senior director of market insights at the AI-driven marketing platform SOCi, in a statement. "If ByteDance was willing to divest TikTok in the U.S., why didn't they make a deal months ago when they were in a better position to dictate terms?"

If the deadline comes and goes with no divestiture, Trump could possibly instruct the Justice Department not to enforce it. But if you were an executive at ByteDance or TikTok's U.S. subsidiary, would you really want to keep operating under such an ephemeral escape chute?

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