Trump Wants Slice Of TikTok Sale For Treasury

US President Donald Trump said on Monday the US government should get a "substantial portion" of the sales price of the American operations of TikTok and warned he will ban the service in the United States on September 15 without a sale.

The turnaround came after Trump on Friday he said he was planning to ban the Chinese-owned video app's US operations as soon as Saturday after dismissing a possible sale to Microsoft.

"I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it’s China essentially … I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen," Trump said.

It was not clear how the US government would receive part of the purchase price.

He added it "will close down on September 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal so the Treasury … of the United States gets a lot of money".

US officials have said TikTok poses a national risk because of the personal data it handles. TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said in a blog post last week that the company was committed to following US laws and was allowing experts to observe its moderation policies and examine the code that drives its algorithms.

Trump's comments confirmed a report on Sunday that he had agreed to give China's ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of popular short-video app TikTok to Microsoft.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested on Monday that Microsoft could divest its holdings in China if it were to buy TikTok.

"So the question is, is Microsoft going to be compromised?" Navarro said in an interview with CNN. "Maybe Microsoft could divest its Chinese holdings?"

Navarro said the Chinese government and military use Microsoft software “to do all the things they do". (Reuters)