Trump was initially determined to ban TikTok, but advisers persuaded him that an acquisition was a more reasonable option.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham did not know TikTok very well, just knew that it was an app that contained videos of dogs playing piano and dancing cats.

On August 1, after playing golf with Trump, Graham urged the White House boss to review the ban on TikTok.

Instead, he paved the way for Microsoft to buy TikTok and keep young people from across the United States, many of whom potential voters, still using social media with videos.

Amid promising prospects for the first-phase trade deal with China and Covid-19 continuing to shake the United States, Trump is seeking to escalate tensions with Beijing ahead of the election.

In a discussion with Senator Graham, President Trump said he understood people's concerns after receiving a series of panic calls regarding the issue of banning TikTok.

According to well-informed officials, Secretary Mnuchin, economic adviser Larry Kudlow, Justice Secretary William Barr, and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway are prominent figures in the effort to persuade President Trump to support.

Government officials believe that the acquisition of TikTok will prevent a large amount of US data from being leaked to China to help the country develop artificial intelligence technology, and will bring an economic victory.

"Mnuchin is quite determined," a source said, adding that the US Secretary of Commerce has long believed that close economic ties with China will be the key to boosting national economic growth.

Mnuchin and others later persuaded Minister Barr to join in an attempt to reverse Trump's decision.

Trump's election campaign is no exception.

On August 2, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the company would continue to negotiate the acquisition of TikTok from parent company ByteDance based in Beijing.

On August 3, Trump told reporters that TikTok would be closed in the United States on September 15 if Microsoft or other American companies could not buy it.

Before Trump threatened to ban TikTok, Microsoft said it had informed the Foreign Investment Commission (CFIUS) of its interest in a short-lived Chinese video-sharing social networking platform.

Trump and some close associates such as deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger or trade adviser Peter Navarro see TikTok as Beijing's spy and data collection tool, arguing that it will help China gain access to the

In December, the Pentagon issued a guide, advising all military personnel to remove TikTok from their mobile phones.

For months, U.S. National Security Council officials have been pressuring the government, urging them to seek ways to ban TikTok, and the topic frequently appears in policy meetings, where discussions about

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo initially agreed with the proposal to ban TikTok, but later, he realized the popularity of this application and gradually abandoned the old view.

TikTok, meanwhile, dismissed allegations of spying, collecting information, and asserting that US users' data was still stored only on servers located in the United States.

Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Mnuchin said that CFIUS had evaluated the application and submitted a recommendation on TikTok's actions to President Trump.

Mnuchin added that President Trump is considering other options, including forcing TikTok's parent company to sell apps in the US or ban TikTok's door based on the International Emergency Economic Power Act.

Adviser Navarro, who allegedly opposed the acquisition of TikTok, on 3/8 expressed skepticism about Microsoft.

"One of the search engines that exists in China is Bing and Microsoft owns it," he said.

According to a well-informed source, if Trump is serious about defending national security interests and combating harmful cyber-actions that the United States accuses China of taking, he also needs to determine whether to do so.

"Regarding Navarro and others' anxiety that we cannot trust China anything, if so, we need to do a lot more than just ban TikTok, or even completely divide the economy.