Trump postpones TikTok ban again: a game about data sovereignty and commercial interests

On April 4, US President Trump announced that the "no sale or ban" ban on TikTok would be postponed for another 75 days. This decision not only pressed the "pause button" for the fate of this short video app in the United States, but also reflected the complexity and uncertainty of the digital game between China and the United States. From the forced sale bill promoted by the Biden administration in 2024 to Trump's two executive orders to extend the "buffer period", this dispute that has lasted for nearly two years is evolving into a microcosm of the contest between national sovereignty and capital power in the digital age.

Since Biden signed the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversaries Controlled Applications Act" in April 2024, TikTok has always been in the "high-pressure zone" of US regulation. The bill requires ByteDance to divest TikTok's US business within 270 days, otherwise it will be fully banned from January 19, 2025. However, Trump quickly reversed the policy direction after taking office. He first postponed the ban for 75 days on January 20 on the grounds that the "national security review was not completed", and this time he pressed the pause button again on the grounds that "more time is needed to reach a deal".

The new strategy of the Trump administration clearly has the characteristics of "step-by-step deconstruction": on the one hand, it maintains legal deterrence through executive orders, and on the other hand, it releases room for negotiation. According to Reuters, the U.S. Treasury Department has taken the lead in designing a "equity reset" plan, which plans to have Sequoia Capital and Carlyle Group invest $32 billion to establish a new entity TikTok US, reduce ByteDance's shareholding ratio to 18.5%, and introduce Oracle and Amazon AWS to build a "dual cloud firewall". This architecture not only meets the U.S. regulatory requirements for the "20% foreign shareholding red line", but also retains some rights and interests for ByteDance, showing signs of compromise between the two sides on technical details.

Behind Trump's "delaying tactics" is a precise calculation of multiple interests. First, as a politician born as a businessman, Trump is well aware of the influence of TikTok's 170 million American user groups on young voters. According to the analysis of The Washington Post, the extension policy can help it win the support of Generation Z in the November election, while creating business opportunities for its ally Oracle (whose CEO has joined the TikTok board of directors). Secondly, the Trump administration linked the 54% punitive tariff to the TikTok deal, suggesting that it might use tariff reductions to exchange ByteDance's concessions on algorithmic intellectual property rights, forming a closed loop of "digital sovereignty for economic benefits".

For ByteDance, the room for compromise is limited but imperative. China's Ministry of Commerce has clearly required that any agreement must pass national security review, but faced with the temptation of $20 billion in annual revenue in the US market, the company has to weigh the feasibility of "partial equity in exchange for data sovereignty". Bloomberg predicts that if the deal is reached, TikTok US will achieve double-layer compliance of "algorithm localization + equity dilution", and the US cloud computing industry will also gain an additional $40 billion by taking over data business.

Regardless of the final form of the agreement, the TikTok case has gone beyond the scope of simple commercial mergers and acquisitions. The "sunset clause" in the draft agreement - if China's shareholding rises to 20% before 2029, the US has the right to initiate the nationalization procedure - exposes the US's long-term control intentions over digital sovereignty. This "flexible regulatory framework" may become a "new paradigm" for future multinational technology companies, forcing Chinese companies to redefine their globalization strategies.

In this game, there is no real winner. The long-arm jurisdiction implemented by the United States in the name of national security, China's cautious concessions with data sovereignty as a shield, and ByteDance's difficult balance between commercial interests and national will, together weave a complex picture of global governance in the digital age. When the June 19 deadline approaches again, the world will witness the final chapter of this battle for digital sovereignty and the profound imprint it leaves on the future globalization path of technology companies.