President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that, theoretically, gives him other 75 days to TikTok to be able to continue operating in the United States. This states that the country’s Department of Justice should not “take any action to enforce the law (sale or divestment)”, which contemplates fines of hundreds of billions of dollars for companies that continue to allow the download of the platform or the use of the service in the country.
The new attorney general, Pam Bondi, is now supposed to “issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that has occurred” since January 19, when the law against TikTok came into operation in the country, until the current moment. Despite the launch of the order, Apple and Google still do not allow the download of the application in their stores, and it is not clear that they will restore it until the Chinese tool reaches a definitive agreement with Washington.
As ABC has reported, jurists have doubts about the validity of this executive order. The blocking law approved by Biden last April establishes that the deadline to enforce the rule can only be extended by the president in the event that TikTok was finalizing the sale of the service with a potential buyer, something that, for the moment , it hasn’t happened.
Despite Trump’s move, the United States Government would have up to five years to go to court and demand the corresponding payments from companies that fail to comply with the law. Considering that the law was passed with broad support from Democrats and Republicans, it would not be unusual for the order of the new tenant of the White House to soon face some legal challenge.
Both last Sunday, when he announced his intention to launch the executive order, and this Monday, Trump stated that he would like the United States Government to have 50% ownership of the application. In this way, according to the leader, fears related to the platform being exploited by China to obtain user data and launch disinformation campaigns would disappear, since Washington would act as guarantor of security. At the moment, TikTok has not commented on this hypothetical outcome.
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