Trump open to again extending TikTok deadline if necessary

US President Donald Trump said he would “probably” extend the deadline for the sale for Chinese-owned social video app TikTok if a deal is not reached by April 5.

Trump said Thursday there was “a lot of interest” in TikTok and that “right now we have at least another month, so we don’t need an extension” in response to questions at the White House about the app’s status.

At the same time, Trump said he was willing to extend the deadline if necessary.

“If I needed an extension, I’d probably get it extended,” Trump said.

“We have a lot of interest in TikTok. And China is going to play a role, so hopefully China will approve of the deal, but they are going to play a role,” he added, without specifying the interested buyers.

A bipartisan law previously set a January 19 deadline for Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. to sell the app and the service’s US operations temporarily went dark.