Trump wants a cut for US from any Microsoft-TikTok purchase in unprecedented demand

President Donald Trump has demanded that US treasury should get a substantial chunk of TikTok sale proceeds, as he set September 15 as deadline for popular Chinese short video app to be out of business in country unless it is bought by an American company.

Trump was speaking to reporters at a White House news conference on Monday, hours after it anunced deadline for TikTok to stop operations in US. Techlogy giant Microsoft is in talks with TikTok's parent company ByteDance to buy its US operation. However, president is in favour of a complete 100 per cent purchase and t 30 per cent as reportedly being negotiated w.

“ United States should get a very large percent of that price because we're making it possible. Without us, you kw, I use expression, it's like landlord and tenant. And without lease, tenant doesn't have value,” Trump said.

“Well, we're sort of in a certain way, lease. We make it possible to have this great success. TikTok is a tremendous success. But a big portion of it in this country. It would come from sale, yeah. Whatever number is, it would come from sale,” he said.

Earlier in day, Trump said that TikTok will close down on September 15, unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out an appropriate deal. He also spoke to Microsoft's Indian-American CEO Satya Nadella on matter. Redmond-headquartered Microsoft, in a statement on Sunday, said that following a conversation between Nadella and Trump, it is prepared to continue discussions to explore a purchase of TikTok in US.

Microsoft will move quickly to pursue discussions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance in a matter of weeks and will complete se discussions in any event by September 15, it said. India's recent decision to ban TikTok and or Chinese apps have stirred a national debate in US and re has been increasing demand in America to follow suit.

India in June banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok and UC Browser, saying y were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of country. TikTok, Trump asserted, has to be an American company.

“We want security problems with China. It's got to be an American company. It's got to be American security. It's got to be owned here. We don't want to have any problems with security, et cetera. And something could come out,” he said.

“I will tell you, re's a lot of excitement, t only by Microsoft, but by or companies in terms of buying it. So, we'll see what happens. But we want and we think we deserve to have a big percent of that price coming to America, coming to Treasury,” Trump said in response to a question.

Earlier in day, White House trade adviser and assistant to president, Peter Navarro, said that TikTok poses a security threat to country.

“ Chinese Communist Party may kw where your children are. That's essentially problem. You sign up for a Chinese app like TikTok, y get your user name and password, maybe if you use that across or applications, y've got that,” he told CNN in an interview.

Microsoft, he said, is one of four or five American techlogy companies, Yahoo, Google, Sysco and ors, who helped China originally build ir great firewall of China, which is used to surveil, track, monitor, sensor and imprison Chinese people.

"But, more importantly, one of few surviving search engines from America in China is Bing, and Microsoft owns that. So you kw that re's some fishy stuff going on re,” he said.

“If you're in China and doing a Skype call, which is ar Microsoft product, CCP is listening in. So question is, is Microsoft going to be compromised? Would it be useful to have a rule if you sell it that it maybe Microsoft could divest its Chinese holdings and n we …more comfortable?” he said.

Meanwhile, Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Greg Walden, House Mirity Whip Steve Scalise and Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee Republican Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requesting a classified briefing on TikTok and or techlogy companies with alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party.

“While we remain deeply concerned with TikTok, such concerns extend beyond popular short-form video app. For example, we recently learned a retail store partnered with DeepCam LLC – a company with links to China and its authoritarian government – secretly to deploy facial recognition techlogy at hundreds of locations, collecting information on countless Americans,” y wrote.

“Additionally, we kw companies like Shenzhen Hawk, a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate, TCL, develop and offer apps with spyware and malware designed to harvest user data and send it back to China,” leaders wrote.