President Donald Trump tried to ban Tiktok during his first mandate, but during his second term, he said that he is a “fan” of the social video sharing application.
American leaders made an astonishing subject on Tiktok, suggesting the public wondering if years of disastrous warning concerning a national security threat were overestimated from the start.
Barely four years ago, President Donald Trump tried to prohibit the abbreviated video application, declaring that his Chinese property through Bytedance posed “credible” dangers for American data and security. Now, his White House has an official Tiktok account, and the president rejects these same concerns as “very overrated”.
The change reflects both Washington’s political recalibration and the growing popularity of the application. Trump’s campaign in 2024 has relied heavily on the scope of Tiktok, amassing millions of followers. Last week, the White House officially launched an account, highlighting a complete reversal of its first mandate position.
The congress, on the other hand, had taken a much more difficult line. In 2024, legislators massively adopted a disinvestment or bank law, demanding Bydance sold Tiktok American operations or the withdrawal of American application stores. But since his return to functions, Trump has extended the deadline for disinvestment three times – and has promised to continue to do so – to the recovery of the law.
The White House launches the official Tiktok account with Trump presented in good place in the first video
Barely four years ago, President Donald Trump tried to prohibit the abbreviated video application, declaring that his Chinese property through Bytedance posed “credible” dangers for American data and security. (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
Some legislators protested. Senator Mark Warner, D-VA., Warned that Trump’s extensions were “against the law” and “a sham if the algorithm does not move from Beijing”. Representative John Moolenaar, R-Mich., President of House China Select Committee, argued in June that the United States should “let [TikTok] Go dark. “However, beyond a few aberrant values, the Congress has set up little resistance to Trump’s unilateral delays.
“I’m really not worried. I think it’s very surface … I’m a Tiktok fan,” said Trump on Friday when he asked him about data security risks.
This is a live gap compared to 2020, when he signed decrees to force a sale of the American company from Tiktok and threatened to completely close the application. These efforts collapsed before the court and President Joe Biden then revoked the orders in 2021, replacing them with a broader examination of national security.
Critics argue that the threat has not changed, only Trump’s priorities. “None of the national security considerations changed from the president’s first mandate to his current mandate,” said Michael Sobolik, principal member of the Hudson Institute. “What has changed is the political environment: Tiktok turned out to be politically useful for President Trump.” Sobolik also underlined Trump’s bonds with the donor billionaire Jeffrey Yass, who has a participation in Bytedance: “It is quite clear that the political support of [Yass] Also seems to have had a certain influence on him. “”
Public feeling has also softened. A recent PEW survey has only revealed a third of Americans support the ban on the prohibition of Tiktok, against 50% in March 2023. Another third opposed a ban, while the rest remains undecided.
On Friday, an American Federal Court of Appeal confirmed a law forcing Chinese bytedance to give up its short tiktok popular video application in the United States at the start of next year or a ban. (Dado Ruvic / Reuters / Reuters)
Experts say that ambiguity is reflected in Washington. Anupam Chander, a law professor of Georgetown who studies global technological regulations, noted that the authors of the 2024 law insisted on the fact that they do not prohibit Tiktok but forcing a sale. “Now, with regard to the application, there is a question of what you want to make respect: the declarations of the congress on what the law said or the text of the law itself,” he said.
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Skeptics continue to warn that Tiktok may be forced to put user data back to Beijing, or that his powerful algorithm could be armed to shape American opinion. In April, after Trump slapped the stiff prices on Chinese imports, Beijing would have withdrawn negotiations on Tiktok and began to amplify the anti-tail content on the platform. “It is clear that China uses Tiktok to return the Americans against Trump’s own policies – and yet it still does not apply the law,” said Sobolik.
Commerce secretary, Howard Lungick, however took a firmer tone. In a CNBC interview on July 24, he warned that “if [China] does not approve of the agreement, so Tiktok will make the darkness. “So far, however, Trump has not pointed out any appetite to let this happen.
Howard Lungick listens as US President Donald Trump pronounces remarks before Lutnick was sworn in as a trade secretary at the Oval Blanche Office on February 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee / Getty / Getty Images images)
The next deadline is looming on September 17. Each extension has made a ban less likely, and with Tiktok now fully integrated into Trump’s political gaming book, the former urgent alarm of the American government on the application seems to have faded in the background.
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Sobolik warned that any agreement that China would be willing to accept would probably be a “fig leaf”.
“If the CCP was willing to sell Tiktok, it would have sold it a long time ago. They care about the strategic value of the application more than monetary value.”
