Trump asks Supreme Court to pause potential US TikTok ban

Donald Trump has urged the United States Supreme Court to postpone the enforcement of a statute that would expose TikTok to a nationwide ban on January 19 if its parent firm does not sell the platform.

'Donald Trump.'

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The President-elect, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed on Friday, claims he can strike an agreement to balance the national security and First Amendment concerns raised by the disputed statute.

Although he points out that he "takes no positions on the merits of the dispute," he asserts that he "alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government."

ByteDance has 22 days left to sell its platform. If it fails not fulfill the deadline, web-hosting providers and mobile app shops will be prohibited from carrying the app, resulting in an effective countrywide ban.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court said that it would review the case on January 10 after a federal appeals court agreed with the government in preserving the legislation. Under the expedited timeline, the justices would have just nine days to rule on the destiny of America's top video-sharing app, which has over 170 million domestic monthly active users.

In Friday's brief, Trump warns the court against determining "unprecedented" and "very significant constitutional questions" on a rushed basis.

"Staying this deadline would provide breathing space for the Court to consider the questions on a more measured schedule, and it would provide President Trump's incoming Administration an opportunity to pursue a negotiated resolution of the conflict," says D. John Sauer, Trump's attorney.

Also at stake is the likelihood that the challenged statute infringes on Trump's role as president to control foreign affairs. He refers to the establishment of a divestiture deadline one day before he takes office.

"As to TikTok alone, the Act makes the determination for the Executive Branch—thus effectively binding the hands of the incoming Trump Administration on a significant point of foreign policy," Sauer argues. "But the Executive, not Congress, is primarily charged with responsibility for the United States' national security, its foreign policy, and its strategic relationship with its geopolitical rivals."

Overall, Trump expresses support for TikTok's opposition to the law, claiming that it "exercises an extraordinary power" by basically shutting down a tremendously popular website important to free expression. He mentions the possibility of "inadvertently setting a troubling global precedent" that began when a Brazilian court blocked X for failing to deactivate the accounts of supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro who allegedly spread false information and threats against Supreme Court justices.

Trump claims that the federal appeals court that upheld the statute paid little respect to TikTok users' free expression rights. He claims the court paid too much respect to national security professionals who advocated for social media restriction.

Government officials and politicians have frequently said that TikTok, which is controlled by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, is a national security danger. So yet, they have given no evidence that TikTok transferred user data to the Chinese government or that it was used to affect the content that users see on the platform. Despite years of legislative infighting to prohibit the app, lawmakers have failed to adopt comprehensive data privacy legislation that would protect all users from firms that indiscriminately collect all types of personal information about customers. TA