Many are hoping that the looming TikTok ban could be stopped by Donald Trump or Joe Biden. On Friday, December 6, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld the TikTok ban law introduced by The Department of Justice and signed by Biden in April. This means that ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the popular social media app, will need to divest its stake in the platform by the deadline of January 19, 2025 or be banned. Here’s whether Trump or Biden can do anything about the TikTok ban before (or after) that happens.
What can Donald Trump or Joe Biden do about the TikTok ban?
While it will be tough for Donald Trump to overturn the TikTok ban through legal action, he could affect how the law is enforced. Biden can also extend the deadline by up to 90 days, though this doesn’t seem likely given that he is responsible for the legislation in the first place.
As pointed out by Reuters, ByteDance would have a “heavy burden” to show the Biden administration that it had made “significant progress toward a divestiture needed to trigger the extension.” Barring that, it would fall upon Trump to reverse the decision in some way.
One of the main difficulties of Trump halting the ban comes from the January 19 deadline coming a day before his official inauguration, as noted by Al Jazeera. While Trump attempted to ban the platform outright by executive order in 2020, it faced numerous legal challenges and by the time it reached the Biden administration it was transformed into the law in question.
Since then, though, Trump stated during his 2024 presidential campaign that he has vowed to save it and even joined the platform, where he has over 14 million followers and more than 100 million likes. In addition, his nominees of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence are both on TikTok and don’t agree with the ban.
If Trump wants to follow through with his promise, he has several options in preventing TikTok from being banned outright over time. Anupam Chander, an expert on global tech regulations at Georgetown Law, says that in the long term the president-elect could help ByteDance change its policies on TikTok to consider security concerns. Trump could also assist in having the company find a US buyer to comply with the law.
Another expert, staff attorney George Wang at Columbia University, similarly told Vox that the language in the ban law is broad enough that it grants “the president some leeway to decline to enforce the ban if TikTok or ByteDance comes to some sufficient solution.” Chinese officials would be more open to a sale if Trump lowers his threat to impose additional tariffs on China, according to James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studios via NPR.
Trump could also greatly influence how the TikTok ban law is enforced, effectively neutering its effect. Civil liberties director David Greene from the Electronic Frontier Foundation says the incoming president could “instruct the US Justice Department to drop or modify its defense in the lawsuit with ByteDance or instruct the US Department of Commerce not to enforce the law.”
TikTok is expected to appeal this decision by the federal appeals court to the Supreme Court. Free speech organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union says that the ruling “blatantly violates the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.” It’s unclear, however, whether the Supreme Court would be able to hear the appeal and decide on the case before the January 19 deadline comes to pass. Still, if the appeal is granted, Trump could influence and modify how the DOJ argues its case before the Supreme Court in its defense.
