NEW YORK, July 24. /TASS/. The United States want to have the opportunity to control algorithms of TikTok social network owned by China’s tech company ByteDance or the social network’s operation in the US will be blocked otherwise, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said.

"It [TikTok] is got to come out of Chinese control, right? We have made the decision. You can't have Chinese control and have something on 100 million American phones," the secretary said in an interview with CNBC television. "Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm. That's something [US President] Donald Trump is willing to do. If that deal gets approved by the Chinese, then that deal will happen. If they don't approve it, then TikTok is going to go dark, and those decisions are coming very soon," Lutnick said.

The TikTok sale deal is not formally in the list of topics of trade talks with China but this issue is discussed from time to time in discussions between Washington and Beijing, Lutnick added.

On June 19, Trump announced that he was extending the delay of the ban on the short video creation and viewing service in the US by 90 days, until September 17. A law requiring TikTok to be banned in the US if its parent company, ByteDance, does not sell it came into force about five months ago. Following his inauguration on January 20, Trump issued an executive order postponing the ban on TikTok in the US for at least 75 days. He also told reporters that the US should have a stake in TikTok but did not explain what that meant.

In 2024, President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to sell or cease TikTok's operations in the United States by January 19. According to media reports, the Washington administration tried to find candidates to purchase 50% of TikTok's shares.