Potential TikTok buyers are lining up as President Trump and the Chinese government show heightened interest in striking a deal to sell the popular video-sharing platform in the face of a U.S.

With President Donald Trump back in office, his idea for a TikTok joint venture could set a precedent for how he expects all Chinese companies to operate in the US. On Sunday evening, he posted on Truth Social: “I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.

TikTok could still not be downloaded from the Apple and Google app stores in the U.S, even after President Trump's executive order.

Within hours of his inauguration, President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the enforcement of a TikTok ban that had taken effect the previous day. The move tossed a lifeline to TikTok -- and its 170 million users in the United States.

Legal experts said despite Trump's order, service providers and app distributors such as Google and Apple still face major uncertainty and potential massive financial liability for defying a law that banned TikTok in the United States unless Chinese parent ByteDance divested the company by Jan.