Share this story

Trump to offer China lower tariffs for TikTok deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would be willing to reduce tariffs to get a deal done with TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance.

ADVERTISING

ByteDance faces an April 5 deadline to find a non-Chinese buyer for TikTok or face a U.S. ban on national security grounds.

In the latest twist over the fate of the popular short-video app, Trump said he was willing to extend the deadline if an agreement over the social media app was not reached.

“With respect to TikTok, and China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly in the form of an approval, maybe, and I think they’ll do that. Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.

Vice President JD Vance has said he expects the general terms of an agreement that resolves the ownership of the social media platform to be reached by April 5.

The future of the app used by nearly half of all Americans has been up in the air since a law, passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support, required ByteDance to divest TikTok by January 19.

The app briefly went dark in January after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban, but flickered back to life days later once Trump took office.

Trump quickly issued an executive order postponing enforcement of the law to April 5 and said last month that he could further extend that deadline to give himself time to shepherd a deal.

The White House has been involved to an unprecedented level in the closely watched deal talks, effectively playing the role of investment bank.

US risks default as soon as August without action

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. government will probably risk defaulting on some of its $36.6 trillion in debt as soon as August — or possibly even by late May — unless Congress acts to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office forecast on Wednesday.

The CBO’s forecast of the so-called “X-date” when the Treasury Department would no longer be able to cover its obligations follows an estimate by the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday that the U.S. could face the risk of default sometime between mid-July and early October.

The CBO said the date would “probably” occur in August or September.

But the agency warned that in the meantime, if borrowing needs exceed CBO projections, “the Treasury’s resources could be exhausted in late May or sometime in June.”

Establishing a firm X-date is difficult “because the timing and amount of revenue collections and outlays over the intervening months” is a moving target, CBO explained.

For example, the short-term flow of revenues into the Treasury will not become more clear until the government calculates receipts around the April 15 deadline for taxpayers to submit annual filings. CBO noted other important dates: a mid-June tax payment deadline and additional extraordinary measures that become available on June 30.

A failure by Congress and President Donald Trump to agree upon and enact a debt limit increase would bring severe consequences.

“If the debt limit is not raised or suspended before the extraordinary measures are exhausted, the government will be unable to pay all of its obligations. As a result, it would have to delay making payments for some activities, default on its debt obligations, or both,” CBO warned.

Republicans, who control the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, have not said when they intend to advance legislation to raise Congress’ self-imposed debt limit.

Lawmakers have repeatedly taken negotiations over raising the government’s borrowing limit to the last minute, a trend that has rattled financial markets and led the major credit agencies to lower their ratings on the federal government’s creditworthiness.

DOJ to move Trump hush money case to federal court

NEW YORK (Reuters) — The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday backed Donald Trump’s bid to move his already-decided hush money criminal case to federal court, the second time in less than a week the department has moved to help the U.S. president in a personal legal matter.

Trump was convicted last year on charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of covering up a payment to a porn star for her silence about a sexual encounter she says she had with him, which he denies. A judge on Jan. 10 sentenced him to unconditional discharge — meaning no jail or any other punishment — paving the way for his inauguration 10 days later.

He pleaded not guilty and is appealing his conviction in the first-ever criminal trial of a sitting or former U.S. president.

Trump is still trying to move the case to federal court, where he could seek to have it dismissed altogether on the basis that jurors at his trial saw evidence of acts from his first term as president. The U.S. Supreme Court last July found that U.S. presidents have broad immunity from prosecution over official acts.

In a court filing, the Justice Department urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling that the case belonged in state court because the case concerned personal conduct, not official acts. The department is not directly involved in the case, but said it had an interest in protecting federal officials who face personal legal risk under state law due to their responsibilities.