TikTok announces withdrawal from US market?! Seller: I don’t want to withdraw yet

This March, TikTok's stay in the United States has become one of the biggest topics. Various speculations, discussions, and controversies have made headlines in major media and the popularity of social platforms has remained high. Most people are wondering whether TikTok can survive this crisis.

Comprehensive crackdown! "If you don't sell it, you'll be banned"

The crackdown on TikTok is happening at an extremely fast pace.

On March 5, local time, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a bill requiring Chinese technology company ByteDance to sell its short video app TikTok, otherwise Tik Tok will be forced to withdraw from the U.S. market.

On March 7, the U.S. House of Representatives passed it unanimously with a vote of 50:0.

On March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to divest TikTok, owned by ByteDance, with an overwhelming vote of 352 to 65.

It is worth noting that the U.S. House of Representatives proposed and passed the latest bill on TikTok in just one week by "suspending the rules of procedure." The "suspending the rules of procedure" used here is equivalent to an "express channel" to quickly deal with bills that are not controversial and have more than two-thirds support from both parties.

Next, the bill will be submitted to the Senate for review and voting. If the Senate passes and the president signs it, the bill will take effect. (The bill requires ByteDance to divest its short video app TikTok within 165 days, otherwise it will be required to be removed from major app stores.)

Now, everyone is speculating whether the bill will eventually be sent to the White House. US President Biden has previously stated, "If Congress passes it, I will sign it."

Divestiture or exit, TikTok, which has 170 million American users, is facing its final battle.

Once the bill is passed, it means that TikTok will face a survival crisis of "either divestiture or ban".

Fighting Back

Faced with the divestiture bill, TikTok CEO Chow Shou-zi spoke out on TikTok, emphasizing that the bill becoming law would be equivalent to banning TikTok.

In one week, TikTok sent users three pop-up ads, a few hours before the parliamentary vote and after the bill was passed by the House of Representatives, urging them to call their members:

“Stop shutting down TikTok.”
"Speak up now — before the U.S. government takes away the constitutional right to free speech from 170 million Americans."
“It will harm millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deprive artists of their audiences.”
"If the House votes to ban TikTok on Wednesday, the administration will take away the community you and millions of other Americans love."

“Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and let them vote against it.”

The red dial button is just below the pop-up window. Enter your postcode to find your local MP and constituency.

This may be TikTok's most intense counterattack against US sanctions.

According to Politico and The New York Times, congressional offices have been flooded with calls from TikTok users. Staff receive more than 1,000 calls a day, many from teenagers and the elderly, some asking in a friendly manner whether TikTok will be banned, while others use harsh words.

The day before the House of Representatives voted, dozens of TikTok's popular creators gathered at the Capitol building to protest. They held up signs supporting TikTok, saying that a ban on TikTok would cause trouble for their economic problems.

“TikTok has changed my life for the better.”

“I am one of TikTok’s 170 million American users.”

“TikTok has boosted my business.”

On many social media platforms that day, multiple videos related to #KeepTikTok quickly became trending searches. Some supporters left comments in the comment section of TikTok's official social account, condemning the damage the bill would cause to millions of small businesses and saying it would "destroy our livelihoods."

But this is not the first time TikTok has faced sanctions in the United States.

TikTok has faced charges in the United States almost every year over the past four years.

In December 2019, the U.S. Army and Navy banned the use of TikTok on official devices after they used TikTok's dancing videos to recruit young people into the military.

In August 2020, Trump issued an executive order that set off the first TikTok ban. As the ban was about to be implemented, TikTok sued Trump. The judge's ruling opinion held that the requirements of the executive order exceeded the president's authority. The ban was not implemented.

The ban was then lifted after Biden took office in 2021; but soon, in December 2022, Biden began to ban nearly 4 million US federal government employees from using TikTok on government devices.

In 2023 and 2024, TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi attended US congressional hearings twice.

In March 2024, Biden said that if Congress passed the proposed TikTok divestiture bill, he would sign it. Interestingly, in order to win over young voters, the Biden campaign team just entered TikTok in February.

Faced with these bans that have never been completely successful, TikTok and the US government have repeatedly entangled over the past four years. Now that the ban storm has arisen again, no one can predict the fate of TikTok.

TikTok decided to withdraw from the United States! ?

A few days ago, a piece of news broke:

TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi: After internal evaluation, we do not intend to accept TikTok's acquisition and are preparing to withdraw from the US market.

Screenshot of online news

Later, it was reported online that Zhang Yiming said: I hope to see Tiktok exit the US market in a dignified manner.

Many Weibo accounts, big Vs, and related media reported this news.

Screenshots of related celebrity articles

This news was reprinted by Guancha.com and posted to Sina.com

The source of the news is still unknown, but the news is spreading in a realistic way. In the absence of a real source of news, Xiaozhi reserves his opinion. After all, the major official media and TikTok’s official account did not mention this matter, and there was not even a hot search.

Therefore, the authenticity of the news is questionable .

Let's just let the bullets fly for a while.

Seller circle: calm

Although the fate of TikTok has become confusing now, for domestic users, the ones most affected by the TikTok divestiture bill are undoubtedly cross-border merchants who have opened stores in the US TikTok Shop.

But compared to the uproar in public opinion, the seller circle of TikTok in the United States has a kind of calm before the storm.

After the spin-off bill incident, the TikTok conference in Shenzhen was still packed, as if it had never been affected. There was an endless stream of big sellers consulting about the US layout. Their focus was still on investment, ROI, and how to produce hot products. One seller joked: The most intense discussions on the bill are always outsiders watching the show, while those who actually do TikTok in the US are calm.

Some Tik Tok industry insiders also said:

"The mentality of most domestic businesses has not changed much, they have just made some adjustments in the speed of their strategies."

“Only a small number of larger businesses or brands that have just entered the market have begun to consider how to deal with risks.”

“Although TikTok’s commercial deployment in the United States is no longer clear, many people still do not want to give up the opportunity to deploy in the US market.”

…

An industry veteran said: One of the important reasons why sellers are so calm is related to the time when the bill is finally passed. After the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill, the Senate has not announced the voting time, which gives TikTok more room to lobby the Senate.

Most people believe that there is still a long time for adjustment, at least 200-300 days to implement, and they do not want to give up the current opportunity in the US.

Originally, the US market should have been TikTok's top priority in 2024.

Last year, TikTok's revenue in the United States reached $16 billion, and its global revenue was $120 billion. It is reported that TikTok plans to reach $57 billion in global GMV in 2024, of which one-third will be contributed by the US market, about $20 billion.

If no bill is introduced, this goal should be "achievable without any effort."

In particular, Tik Tok's social attributes and the short videos of influencers promoting products were once considered to be a bonus point in the U.S. market, where making money without doing anything was a piece of cake.

However, the wind direction changes rapidly, and these are only predictions. Cross-border sellers who plan to deploy or have already deployed TikTok can wait and see.