US President Donald Trump is widely expected to extend the Thursday deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States.It would be the third time Trump put off enforcing a federal law requiring its sale or ban, which was to take effect the day before his January inauguration.”I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May.”If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension.”Trump said a group of purchasers is ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance “a lot of money” for the video-clip-sharing sensation’s US operations.Trump has repeatedly downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app’s US business.The president is “just not motivated to do anything about TikTok,” said independent analyst Rob Enderle.”Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape.”Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform after coming to believe it helped him win young voters’ support in the November election.”Trump’s not really doing great on his election promises,” Enderle maintained.”This could be one that he can actually deliver on.”- Digital Cold War? -Motivated by national security fears and belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor.TikTok “has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control,” said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain.”National security, economic policy, and digital governance are colliding,” Singh added.The Republican president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office.A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19.As of Monday, there was no word of a TikTok sale in the works.- Tariff turmoil -Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over tariffs imposed by Washington on Beijing.ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be “subject to approval under Chinese law”.Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company.Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance’s share in the new TikTok.Much of TikTok’s US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company’s chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok’s valuable algorithm.”TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand — it’s simply not as powerful,” said Forrester Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering.Meanwhile, it appears TikTok is continuing with business as usual.TikTok on Monday introduced a new “Symphony” suite of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform.”With TikTok Symphony, we’re empowering a global community of marketers, brands, and creators to tell stories that resonate, scale, and drive impact on TikTok,” global head of creative and brand products Andy Yang said in a release.

US President Donald Trump was on Monday leaving a Group of Seven summit early as he hinted of greater involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict and warned Tehran residents to evacuate.Before flying out of Canada in the middle of the G7 gathering, Trump took to social media to back Israel and issue an alert to the Iranian capital of nearly 10 million people.”Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.At a group photo with fellow G7 leaders in the scenic mountain resort of Kananaskis, he said: “I have to be back as soon as I can. I wish I could stay for tomorrow, but they understand, this is big stuff.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump would attend the leaders’ dinner before returning to the White House.The US president will miss a day of meetings that was expected to include discussions with the leaders of Ukraine and Mexico.He has repeatedly declined to say if the United States would participate in Israeli military action, although he says it was not involved in initial strikes.Trump told reporters before his decision was announced to leave early: “As soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something.”The president, who has praised Israel’s strikes despite his stated preference for diplomacy, said Iran would be “foolish” not to agree to a negotiated settlement.”It’s painful for both parties, but I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late,” Trump told reporters as he met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.US forces in the Middle East remain in a defensive posture, a White House spokesman stressed. – Onus on Iran -Israel has struck major nuclear and military sites and killed leading commanders and nuclear scientists in Iran, which has responded with its own volley of drones and missiles on Israel.Canada and European leaders had hoped to draft a G7 statement on the crisis, but diplomats said that Trump had not committed the United States to joining it.Leaders of the club of industrialized democracies — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — have mostly backed Israel, but concern has mounted as the violence intensifies.French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking to reporters at the summit on Monday, pleaded with Israel to spare civilians in Iran.Any G7 statement would be expected to put the onus on Iran and stop short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.”We’ll highlight the legitimate right of the state of Israel to defend itself and we will also discuss potential additional measures to reach a diplomatic solution,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that G7 leaders share concern about Iran’s nuclear program but also: “I do think there’s a consensus for de-escalation.”Iran, since Trump pulled out of an earlier nuclear deal in 2018, has ramped up uranium enrichment but not yet at levels to create an atomic bomb. Israel is widely known to have nuclear weapons but does not acknowledge them publicly.- Tariff talks -The summit at a wooded lodge under snow-topped mountains comes after months of tumult on the global stage since Trump’s return.Seeking to shatter a decades-old US-led global economic order, Trump has vowed sweeping tariffs on friends and foes alike although he has postponed implementation until July 9.But Trump voiced optimism about a resolution with Canada and signed documents with Starmer to confirm an agreement with Britain.Trump has previously mocked host Canada, stating that the vast but less populated neighbor should become the 51st US state.But Trump has appeared to show more respect to Canada since Carney, a staid former central banker, took over from the more flamboyant Justin Trudeau in March.Trump had taken office seeking diplomacy both on Iran and Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022.He has since voiced frustration that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not accepted a US proposal for a ceasefire.Trump said Monday that Putin was “very insulted” by Russia’s 2014 expulsion from the G8 and that if Russia were still a member, “you wouldn’t have a war right now.”

The US Department of Defense on Monday awarded OpenAI a $200 million contract to put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work for the military.San Francisco-based OpenAI will “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” according to the department’s posting of awarded contracts.The program with the defense department is the first partnership under the startup’s initiative to put AI to work in governments, according to OpenAI.OpenAI plans to show how cutting-edge AI can vastly improve administrative operations such as how service members get health care and also cyber defenses, the startup said in a post.All use of AI for the military will be consistent with OpenAI usage guidelines, according to the startup.Big tech companies are increasingly pitching their tools to the US military, among them Meta, OpenAI and, more predictably, Palantir, the AI defense company founded by Peter Thiel, the conservative tech billionaire who has played a major role in Silicon Valley’s rightward shift.OpenAI and defense tech startup Anduril Industries late last year announced a partnership to develop and deploy AI solutions “for security missions.”The alliance brings together OpenAI models and Anduril’s military tech platform to ramp up defenses against aerial drones and other “unmanned aircraft systems”, according to the companies.”OpenAI builds AI to benefit as many people as possible, and supports US-led efforts to ensure the technology upholds democratic values,” OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said at the time.

World leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Canada on Monday pushed US President Donald Trump to back away from his punishing trade war, arguing that it poses a risk to global economic stability.At a summit where host Canada worked to avoid stoking Trump’s anger, and with attention on events in the Middle East, leaders still urged the US president to reverse course on his plans to impose even steeper tariffs on countries across the globe as early as next month.Most countries represented at the G7 are already subject to a 10 percent baseline tariff imposed by Trump, with European countries and Japan also hit with additional levies on cars, steel, and aluminum.G7 leaders used the meeting to sit down with Trump one-on-one to make their case for the US leader to seal agreements that would eliminate the worse of the US tariff threat.In official sessions, the leaders also warned Trump that the tariffs could bring serious harm to the world economy.”Several participants asked to end the tariff dispute as soon as possible,” a senior German official told reporters on condition of anonymity.They argued that the dispute weakens the G7’s economies and “in the end will only strengthen China,” the official said.Trump used the meeting to officially sign a deal already announced in May with Britain, the first country to secure a trade pact with the US to avoid Trump’s threat of the crushing levies.”I like them. That’s the ultimate protection,” Trump told reporters after a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the G7 sidelines.At a media conference marking the deal, Trump opened a folder to display the signed agreement, only for the paperwork to slide out and spread across the ground.”Oops, sorry about that,” he said as Starmer scrambled to gather up the loose sheets and stuff them back in the folder.- ‘Get it done’ -The trade issue is of urgent interest to Canada after the Trump administration announced several additional levies on Canadian imports in recent months, throwing the economic future of America’s northern neighbor into deep uncertainty.After a meeting between Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Canadian government indicated that the two sides could reach a trade truce deal within the next 30 days.Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters in Canada that he spoke to Trump for 30 minutes and discussed ways they could find a solution “in a manner that is in line with Japan’s national interests,” according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.”As there are still some points where both sides disagree, we have not reached an agreement on the package as a whole,” Ishiba said.There were hopes that non-G7 countries expected at the meeting on Tuesday would also have their time with Trump, but this was dashed by the US leader’s decision to cut his attendance short due the Iran crisis.Leaders from South Korea, India, Brazil, and South Africa will arrive at the gathering at a resort in the Canadian Rockies with Trump already gone.Dozens of countries are locked in negotiations with Washington to clinch some sort of trade deal before the US imposes stinging reciprocal tariffs, threatened for July 9.Mexico, whose president Claudia Sheinbaum was also expected, is meanwhile seeking to renegotiate its three-way North American free trade agreement that also includes Canada.While there was little expectation that the summit would deliver a breakthrough in the trade negotiations between the US and the rest of the world, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was part of Trump’s delegation.A source at the summit said that French President Emmanuel Macron urged the American leader to quickly end the trade conflict once and for all.The European Commission handles trade negotiations for the 27-country bloc, and the EU’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic was also attending the summit, accompanying the delegation of EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.The EU institutions are official members of the G7, and during the morning session, von der Leyen argued to the leaders that “tariffs — no matter who sets them — are ultimately a tax paid by consumers and businesses at home.”Von der Leyen also met with Trump one-on-one on trade issues in a sit-down that US officials said was at her request.”We instructed the teams to accelerate their work to strike a good and fair deal. Let’s get it done,” she said in a post on X.