A deal for TikTok seemingly falls hostage to the US-China trade war
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(WASHINGTON) — After months of negotiations, a deal to turn over TikTok’s United States operations to a new company with a majority American ownership was finalized on Wednesday, according to senior administration officials.
The investors — which included Oracle, Blackstone, Andreeson Horowitz and several others — ByteDance and the Trump administration negotiated and agreed to the terms.
The plan was for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to approve the deal this week, triggering a 120-day closing period to finalize the paperwork and financing.
ByteDance would have maintained a minority ownership in the new company, under the 20% threshold required by Congress.
All that remained was for the Chinese government to approve the deal — something all sides of the negotiations expected would happen.
However, on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced his tariffs.
Thursday morning, representatives for ByteDance called the White House to say the Chinese government would not approve the deal until negotiations could be held on Trump’s tariffs.
The deal remains in limbo, hostage to the emerging trade war between the U.S. and China.
On Friday, Trump said he is extending the deadline for TikTok to be banned or sold off by its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance.
The previous April 5 deadline will be pushed 75 days, Trump said in a post to his social media platform. It’s the second time he has pushed the deadline since taking office.
The TikTok negotiations were led by Vice President JD Vance, sources told ABC News. The deal is currently not being renegotiated with investors and the White House both standing by.
The revival appears to depend on what happens with U.S. and China negotiations on trade.
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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Monday filed a highly unusual motion stating its intent to review a state-level conviction of a Trump ally who was sentenced to nine years in prison for leading a security breach of her county’s elections computer system following the 2020 presidential election.
Former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk Tina Peters was sentenced last October for giving an individual affiliated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of President Donald Trump who amplified false election claims, access to election software she used for her county. Screenshots of the software later appeared on right-wing websites that in turn used it to further promote baseless claims of voter fraud.
Early last month, Peters filed a motion with the federal district court in Colorado seeking to challenge her guilty verdict.
On Monday, the senior acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Yaakov Roth, filed a statement of interest with the court, urging a judge to give “prompt and careful consideration” to concerns Peters’ counsel has raised about her case.
“Reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’ case,” Roth said in the filing. “Accordingly, the United States respectfully submits that the concerns raised in the Application warrant – at the very least – prompt and careful consideration by this Court (and, at the appropriate time, the Colorado appellate courts).”
The Justice Department does not have the legal authority to unilaterally overturn state-level convictions. However, some critics have expressed concerns that such intervention highlights a troubling willingness by Trump-appointed officials at the Department of Justice to aid allies of the president, while also raising the prospect of retribution against his political opponents.
Roth’s filing further states that Peters’ case fits into a broader review underway at the Justice Department of “cases across the nation” that the filing argues may be “abuses of the criminal justice process.”
“This review will include an evaluation of the State of Colorado’s prosecution of Ms. Peters and, in particular, whether the case was ‘oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives,’” the filing stated.
An ABC News request for comment about the filing submitted to the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately receive a response.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a high-stakes visit for a key ally that depends on the United States for security and trade.
At the top of the agenda is military cooperation to deter threats, foreign investment in the U.S., opportunities to develop technology and American energy exports, according to senior Trump administration officials.
Japan’s prime minister will be looking to strike a personal connection with Trump and get reassurance that Trump won’t hit Japan with tariffs or abandon its security guarantees. Ishiba faces the challenge of navigating Trump’s long-held views that allies take advantage of the U.S. while not paying enough for the cost of American military assistance.
He will likely look to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022 after he left office. Abe used his personal relationship with Trump to push for Japanese interests and avoid a trade war during Trump’s first administration.
The senior administration officials hinted they’ll be looking for concessions and commitments from Japan in the form of investments in the U.S.
“We all know that Trump pays a lot of attention to deficits,” a senior administration official said. “We welcome Japanese investments in the United States, including in the U.S. manufacturing sector.”
“There will be a lot of discussion about that, as well as exports from the U.S., most likely in the energy sector,” the official added.
The CEO of SoftBank, one of Japan’s largest companies, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago during the transition period and recently came to the White House, promising to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years, creating 100,000 jobs.
“The United States is proud of our long and close alliance with Japan, and it’s time for a new age of U.S.-Japan relations to bring peace and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific. Our two nations will continue to work together to ensure we deter threats in the region through our full range of military capabilities. Today, you should expect President Trump and Prime Minister Ishiba to discuss realistic training exercises and increase our cooperation on defense equipment and technology,” the senior administration official said.
“They will also discuss foreign investment into the United States to create high-quality American jobs. President Trump and the prime minister will also discuss ways to improve our cybersecurity capabilities, increase space cooperation and promote joint business opportunities to develop critical technologies like AI and semiconductors, and lastly, as President Trump aims to unleash American energy exports to the rest of the world,” the senior administration official added.
One senior official also noted the administration supports efforts to hold trilateral meetings with Japan and South Korea and that there will see continuity there.
When asked about whether Trump will ask Japan to raise its defense spending, an issue that Trump has raised with allies across the globe, the officials declined to “get ahead” of discussions.
But one official added, “There are negotiations that go on constantly, quite frankly, about the status of facilities and weapons and deployments and training areas, and so they’re always constantly being adjusted to ensure the strongest possible deployment of the alliance, you know, the capabilities between the two of us and the investment that both countries are making in our shared security.”
One senior administration official added that the visit will be a chance to “continue to develop the long-standing friendship and relationship between our two nations.”
(NEW YORK) — In what appears to be part of the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign against sanctuary cities, the Justice Department is investigating a sheriff in upstate New York who released an undocumented man later taken into custody by federal agents.
The US Attorney’s office for the Northern District of New York “is looking into the circumstances” surrounding the release by Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne of Jesus Romero-Hernandez, a 27-year-old Mexican citizen.
Romero-Hernandez pleaded guilty to a state assault charge and was sentenced to time served, necessitating his release. He left local custody in Ithaca before Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived to pick him up on a federal complaint charging him with illegally re-entering the United States after a prior removal.
Ithaca adopted a sanctuary law in 2017.
ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security Investigations later apprehended Romero-Hernandez.
“The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office in Ithaca, NY, a self-described sanctuary city, appears to have failed to honor a valid federal arrest warrant for a criminal alien with an assault conviction,” Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said. “I applaud the U.S. Attorney’s commitment to investigate these circumstances for potential prosecution.”
Tompkins County and the Tompkins County Sheriff’s office issued a joint statement refuting the DOJ’s claims.
The officials said ICE was “notified of when the individual in question was going to be released and had every opportunity to come to the jail to obtain the individual in question without any need for a pursuit or other incident.”
“There was no interference with federal immigration enforcement efforts. DOJ’s assertion that the Tompkins County Sheriff did anything to put federal law enforcement officers in danger is false and offensive,” the offices said.
Bove convened all 93 US attorney’s offices on a phone call on Thursday to convey that they should focus on surging resources toward immigration enforcement. He likened the threat posed by undocumented immigrants to the threat posed by terrorists.
It represents a significant shift for the Justice Department redirecting law enforcement resources away from previous national security priorities and toward immigration enforcement.
