President-elect Donald Trump has requested that the US Supreme Court postpone a forthcoming TikTok ban as he seeks to negotiate a “political resolution”.
On Friday, Trump’s attorney submitted a legal brief to the court asserting that the former president “opposes banning TikTok” and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office”.
On January 10, the court is set to hear arguments regarding a US law that mandates ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to divest the social media platform to an American company or confront a ban by January 19, just one day before Trump’s inauguration.
Accusations have emerged from US officials and lawmakers alleging a connection between ByteDance and the Chinese government, a claim the company has firmly denied.
The allegations surrounding an app with 170 million users in the United States prompted Congress to enact a bill in April, which President Joe Biden signed into law, incorporating a requirement for divestment or prohibition.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have initiated several legal battles against the legislation, contending that it jeopardizes the principles of free speech in the United States. However, these efforts have been mainly unsuccessful.
The absence of a potential buyer has left the companies with one last opportunity to challenge the ban through the American high court.
The Supreme Court, having previously rejected a request for an emergency injunction against the law, has now decided to permit TikTok, ByteDance, and the US government to present their arguments on January 10, just days before the anticipated ban is set to be implemented.
Last week, Trump met with TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
In a court filing submitted on Friday, Trump characterized the case as embodying “an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other.”
The filing indicated that Trump “takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute.” Still, it also noted that extending the January 19 deadline would provide Trump “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution” without needing court intervention.
The US Justice Department has contended that purported connections between TikTok and China pose a national security risk. At the same time, several state governments have expressed apprehensions regarding the widely used social media platform.
In a significant legal move, nearly two dozen state attorneys general, spearheaded by Montana’s Austin Knudsen, have called on the Supreme Court to affirm the law that mandates ByteDance and TikTok to either divest or face a ban.
In early December, a federal appeals court dismissed efforts to invalidate the legislation, asserting it represented “the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and successive presidents.”
Trump has opposed the ban, even though he endorsed a similar measure during his first term in office.
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points,” he stated during a press conference earlier in December, even though most young voters supported his opponent, Kamala Harris.
“Some suggest that TikTok may be a contributing factor,” he remarked.
