Washington, April 7 (LaPresse) – On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that an agreement on the future of the TikTok platform in the United States was almost finalized, but China backed out in response to new U.S. tariffs. Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump said Beijing changed its position after Washington imposed an additional 34 percent tariff on all Chinese imports last week. "The report is that we had a deal, more or less for TikTok, not a deal, but close enough, and then China changed the deal because of the tariffs. If I had given a small cut on the tariffs, they would have approved that deal in 15 minutes, which shows the power of tariffs," he said. The president's comments followed his decision on Friday to extend the deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer by another 75 days. The video-sharing platform, which has more than 170 million users in the U.S., faces the risk of a potential shutdown under a law passed last year requiring its separation from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
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