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US President-elect Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to delay the upcoming ban on TikTok while he works on a “policy resolution”.
On Friday, his lawyer filed a legal statement in court saying that Trump “opposes the ban on TikTok” and is “looking for opportunities to resolve the issues through political means when he takes office.”
On Jan. 10, the court is due to hear arguments on a US law that would require TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the social media company to a US firm or face a ban on Jan. 19, the day before Trump takes office.
US officials and lawmakers have accused ByteDance of ties to the Chinese government, which the firm denies.
The allegations against the app, which has 170 million users in the US, led Congress to pass a bill signed by President Joe Biden in April that would have required a takedown or ban.
TikTok and ByteDance have filed multiple legal challenges to the law, arguing that it threatens free speech protections in the US, without success. Until a potential buyer appeared, the last chance to break the ban on the companies was through an American court.
While the Supreme Court previously declined to act on a request for an emergency injunction against the law, it agreed to allow TikTok, ByteDance and the US government to appeal their cases on January 10 – days before the ban is due to take effect.
Trump met with the CEO of TikTokShou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.
In his statement to the court on Friday, Trump said the case represents an “unprecedented, new and difficult tension between free speech rights on the one hand and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other.”
While the statement said Trump “does not take any position on the merits of this dispute,” it added that the January 19 deadline would give Trump “an opportunity to find a political solution” to the matter without having to go to court. .
The US Department of Justice says alleged Chinese links to TikTok pose a national security threat – and several state governments have expressed concerns about the popular social media app.
Nearly two dozen state attorneys general, led by Montana’s Austin Knudsen, have urged the Supreme Court to uphold the law, which would require ByteDance and TikTok to divest or be banned.
Earlier in December, a federal appeals court rejected the attempt to repeal the legislation, saying it was “the culmination of extensive bipartisan action by Congress and successive presidents.”
Trump has publicly said he opposes the ban, despite supporting it during his first term as president.
“I have a warm place in my heart for TikTok because I won the youth by 34 points,” he said at a press conference earlier in December, even though most young voters supported his opponent Kamala Harris.
“There are those who say that TikTok has something to do with it,” he added.
