After suffering huge losses following India's ban on 59 Chinese apps, short video platform TikTok may cut off ties with its Chinese parent and become an independent American company, US President Donald Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said.
"I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company," he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
While talks about banning the app in the US has been going, including suggestions by the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the country is yet to make a final decision on it.
TikTok being divested by ByteDance Technology Company "is a much better solution than banning or pushing away", said Kudlow, who is the Director of the National Economic Council.
He added that its services will be located in the US and "it will become a hundred per cent American company".
If it becomes a US company without Chinese links, India may have to reconsider the ban on the short video app wildly popular in the country.
On June 29, the Indian government banned TikTok, along with 58 other Chinese mobile apps in the country citing security reasons. A day after, the applications were removed from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store in India.
The ban came after a deadly clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.
Under Beijing's National Security Law, all Chinese companies have to provide intelligence requested by the government, creating risks for users and their countries.
India was TikTok's biggest market outside of China. There were about 200 million users in India and over 300 million downloads.
(With IANS inputs)
