Washington - Saba:
The US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday asked the US Supreme Court to suspend the implementation of a law banning the popular social media application TikTok, if the owner company does not sell it.
Trump justified the move by seeking to find a "political solution" to the case after taking office, as the Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on January 10.
The law requires the Chinese company ByteDance, owner of TikTok, to sell the platform to a foreign company or face a ban. The US Congress voted last April to ban TikTok unless ByteDance sells the application by January 19.
TikTok - which has more than 170 million US users - and its parent company are seeking to overturn the law. But if the Court does not rule in their favor and no sale takes place, the application may actually be banned in the United States on January 19, one day before Trump takes office.
Trump's support for TikTok is a reversal from his 2020 stance, when he tried to ban the app in the United States and force it to be sold to American companies because of its Chinese ownership.
It also shows the company's efforts to strike a deal with Trump and his team during the presidential campaign.
"President Trump is not taking a position on the merits of this dispute," said John Sauer, Trump's attorney and the president-elect's pick for U.S. attorney general.
"Instead, he respectfully asks the court to consider delaying the statutory deadline of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thereby allowing the incoming Trump administration the opportunity to seek a political resolution to the issues at stake."
Trump previously met with TikTok CEO Xu Zixi in December, hours after the president-elect expressed a "good attitude" toward the app and said he favored allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States for at least a short period.
The president-elect also said he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
Later, CNN reported that Trump spoke to the CEO of TikTok.
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