“Wasn’t prepared” to sign off on any deal regarding the sale of Chinese video app TikTok: Donald Trump

Washington [US]: US President Donald Trump said that he “wasn’t prepared” to sign off on any deal regarding the sale of the Chinese video app TikTok until he has seen the proposal.

“The deal has to be 100 per cent as far as national security is concerned. No, I am not prepared to sign off on anything. I have to see the deal. We need security, especially with what we have seen with respect to China,” Trump told reporters here.

Trump further said that he would be presented with a report on the status of the transaction of TikTok on Thursday.

On August 6, Trump signed an executive order banning any US transactions with ByteDance, set to take effect in 45 days.

On August 14, the US President issued another executive order, requiring ByteDance to divest its interests in TikTok’s operations in the US within 90 days.

Sputnik reported that US software company Oracle has emerged as a frontrunner in the bid to acquire TikTok’s US operations from ByteDance.

Trump expressed his desire to see the US government compensated for facilitating the transaction, but the plan is hampered by regulatory roadblocks, which prohibit direct payments to the Treasury Department.

With regard to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s allegations that called the US Department of State’s webpage on the human rights violations in Xinjiang province of China by the Chinese Communist Party as “full of lies”, he said that the administration is awaiting reports and based on the reports, it “would take action”.

“We don’t want to see that–we have been very strong on that. We would be getting reports over the next two-three days, then we will know what the story is and then take action,” Trump said further.

The US has sanctioned several high-ranking Chinese government officials in connection to the human rights violations of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.