A whopping 77% of Americans say they remain concerned about the Chinese ownership of TikTok – even as the Trump administration scrambles to cut a deal to “save” the popular app, according to a national survey obtained by The Post.
President Trump has until April 5 to find a US buyer for TikTok before his executive order delaying enforcement of a federal ban on the app expires. TikTok briefly went offline in January after its Chinese parent ByteDance ignored the Jan. 19 deadline to completely divest.
Overall, 63% of Americans support either a complete ban of TikTok or a forced sale of the app to American owners. Just 19% prefer ByteDance to remain in control with increased US oversight, while 15% were fine with no changes to current ownership.
“The same people that voted Donald Trump into office do not trust the Chinese Communist Party’s control over TikTok,” Michael Sobolik, an expert on US-China relations and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “They want no part of it and they don’t want it to continue.”
Strikingly, 36% of respondents who said they regularly used TikTok support banning the app, which has 170 million US users.
The share of Americans concerned about ByteDance’s control jumped to 83% after pollsters presented them with details about the Chinese Communist Party’s cybersecurity laws, which require companies to comply with intelligence-gathering by Beijing.
When asked about their top concerns regarding Chinese ownership of TikTok, 88% of respondents cited the potential spread of misinformation, while 84% pointed to political polarization within the US and 83% cited potential CCP cultural influence within the US.
The online survey was conducted by The Vandenberg Coalition, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank, and polling firm JL Partners. It polled a nationally representative sample of 1,017 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.1%.
“The survey shows that a forced sale or even outright ban are vastly preferred options to anything that enables China to continue to use TikTok as a fifth column,” said Carrie Filipetti, a former State Dept. official during Trump’s first term and executive director at the Vandenberg Coalition.
On the issue of US data collection and the risk to US national security, 78% of respondents said it was a moderate, major or critical threat, compared to just 14% who said it was a minor threat or not a threat at all.
More than four in five respondents (81%) said it was urgent to find a solution for the TikTok ownership dilemma. Of that total, 54% described the situation as very or extremely urgent.
TikTok is also seen as an increasingly powerful force in US politics – with 66% saying it has a moderate or major influence compared to 24% who said minor influence or not at all.
“If there is to be a deal or sale, the data is clear – Americans do not want the CCP to have access to their data or algorithm, period,” Filipetti added. “This means we can’t simply replace ByteDance with another Chinese company, or even an American company with joint ventures or headquarters in China, as they’d be subject to precisely the same CCP influence.”
When asked to comment about the survey results, a TikTok spokesperson said they were “laughable” but did not elaborate.
In a major win for TikTok and its CEO Shou Zi Chew, Google and Apple resumed allowing downloads after receiving assurances from US Attorney General Pam Bondi that they won’t face penalties. Congress’s sale-or-ban law initially imposed fines of $5,000 per user if they allowed downloads.
TikTok has long denied that ByteDance employees can access US user data, despite reporting to the contrary. In 2022, Buzzfeed News obtained audio clips from dozens of meetings in which TikTok employees said ByteDance engineers in China could access nonpublic US user data.
“I think for the president, one way that he can serve the constituents that put him back into the White House is to protect them from nefarious CCP influence,” Sobolik said. “This is not something that voters need to be educated on – they get it and they’re really concerned about it. I think it can really be to Trump’s political benefit if he stays strong on this issue.”
The Supreme Court shot down TikTok’s claim that the divestiture law as unconstitutional and found that the feds had presented “well-supported national security concerns.”
US lawmakers and the Justice Department say TikTok served as a spying and propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party – facilitating everything from mass data collection on Americans to subtle manipulation of public opinion through its algorithm. TikTok denies wrongdoing and says it takes steps to safeguard US user data.
Last week, Trump floated the possibility of extending the deadline past April 5.
Trump – who claims to have “warm spot” for TikTok and credited it with helping him win the 2024 election – has said he wants the “United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.”
The president created the first-ever US sovereign wealth fund by executive order earlier this month and said it could potentially buy a stake in TikTok.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who chairs the Senate Intel Committee, wants “any deal for TikTok to result in a complete break from Communist China in accordance with the law,” a spokesman told Punchbowl News earlier this month.
Despite the pushback in Congress, Bill Ford, CEO of major ByteDance shareholder General Atlantic, has asserted there may be options “short of divestiture” on the table.
In a sign of its importance to the administration, Vice President JD Vance were reportedly tapped to spearhead talks on a potential TikTok sale.
Trump said Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok and suggested he wants a “bidding war” for the app. He has floated that possibility of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison or X owner Elon Musk getting involved in a transaction – though Musk later said he has no plans to do so.
