The Trump administration has bipartisan support and all the tools it needs to force the Chinese video sharing platform TikTok into a partnership with a US company that will be acceptable to the interests of the United States, or it shut down, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th August, 2020) The Trump administration has bipartisan support and all the tools it needs to force the Chinese video sharing platform TikTok into a partnership with a US company that will be acceptable to the interests of the United States, or it shut down, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Monday.
"I'm very proud that Congress passed an updated legislation where we now have all the tools we need to use," Mnuchin told CNBC. "It's perfectly clear that there's 100 percent agreement both across Republicans and Democrats that we can't have an app like this that's collecting information on Americans of this size and scale. It's not going to continue to exist in this format and extent."
Mnuchin pointed out if there is an appropriate US buyer that can get the United States comfortable with the security issues going forward, the Trump administration will approve such a deal.
"If not, the president's given a deadline, and it will be shut down," Mnuchin said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week ordering US citizens and entities to stop transactions with Beijing-based ByteDance by September 15 for national security reasons.
Tech giant microsoft has emerged as the main bidder for TikTok while Twitter has also held talks with ByteDance, US corporate media reported on Monday.
However, media also reported that ByteDance plans to file a lawsuit with the US District Court for the Southern District of California as soon as Tuesday that will challenge Trump's executive action.
