White House says unclear whether U.S. government will get cut of TikTok sale

“It may be that the president was thinking, because the Treasury has had to do so much work on this, there are a lot of options here. I’m not sure it’s a specific concept that will be followed through … Regarding fees or anything like that, all that remains to be seen,” Kudlow said.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany, speaking to reporters at a separate briefing, also gave no other details and said she did not want to get ahead of Trump on the issue. She reiterated that the United States planned to take some action on Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, in coming days but gave no details. She twice declined to say how legally the United States could take a cut of the sale proceeds.

On Monday, Trump said he would ban the popular Chinese-owned short-video app on Sept. 15 without a sale to another company outside of China. Microsoft Corp has said it is in talks to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations.

Experts have said the U.S. government generally does not have the authority to take a cut of private business sales. But Trump, a real estate developer and former reality television star who has touted his “art of the deal,” on Monday said “a very substantial portion” of any TikTok sale must go to the U.S. Treasury “because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen.”