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President Donald Trump is calling national security and privacy concerns related to TikTok and its Chinese parent company “highly overrated” and said Friday he’ll keep extending the deadline for the popular video-sharing platform until there’s a buyer.Congress approved a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second termwith the next one coming up on September 17.“We’re gonna watch the security concerns,” Trump told reporters, but added, “We have buyers, American buyers,” and “until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer.”The first extension was through an executive order on January 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national banapproved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courttook effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.His comments follow the White House starting a TikTok account this week.“I used TikTok in the campaign,” Trump said.“I’m a fan of TikTok,” he said. “My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok. If we could keep it going.”As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but the administration has not faced a legal challenge in courtunlike many of Trump’s other executive orders.Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report. Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Keurig Dr Pepper said Monday it will buy Peet’s Coffee owner JDE Peet’s in a deal worth about $18 billion (15.7 billion euro).When the acquisition is complete, the company plans to split into two separate companies, one focused on coffee and the other focused on beverages including Dr Pepper, Canada Dry, 7Up and energy drinks.The coffee business will have about $16 billion in combined sales and the beverage business about $11 billion.“Through the complementary combination of Keurig and JDE Peet’s, we are seizing an exceptional opportunity to create a global coffee giant,” said Tim Cofer, Keurig Dr Pepper’s CEO.In addition to Peet’s, Amsterdam-based JDE Peet’s brands include L’OR, Jacobs, Douwe Egberts, Kenco, Pilao, OldTown, Super and Moccona.Once the two companies are separated, Cofer will become CEO of the beverage business, which will be based in Frisco, Texas, and Keurig Dr Pepper CFO Sudhanshu Priyadarshi will lead the coffee business, which will be located in Burlington, Mass., with its international headquarters in Amsterdam. Associated Press
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E-Commerce
The end of an exemption on tariff duties for low-value packages coming into the United States is causing multiple international postal services to pause shipping as they await more clarity on the rule.The exemption, known as the “de minimis” exemption, allows packages worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty free. A total of 1.36 billion packages were sent in 2024 under this exemption, for goods worth $64.6 billion, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency.It is set to expire on Friday. On Saturday, postal services around Europe announced that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid confusion over new import duties.Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow on Monday.The U.K.’s Royal Mail said it would halt shipments to the U.S. on Tuesday to allow time for those packages to arrive before duties kick in. Items originating in the United Kingdom worth over $100 including gifts to friends and family will incur a 10% duty, it said.“Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out,” DHL, the largest shipping provider in Europe, said in a statement.The company said starting Saturday it “will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the US.”A trade framework agreed on by the U.S. and the European Union last month set a 15% tariff on the vast majority of products shipped from the EU. Packages under $800 will now also be subject to the tariff.The U.S. duty-free exemption for goods originating from China ended in May as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb American shoppers from ordering low-value Chinese goods. The exemption is being extended to shipments from around the world.Many European postal services say they are pausing deliveries now because they cannot guarantee the goods will enter the U.S. before Aug. 29. They cite ambiguity about what kind of goods are covered by the new rules, and the lack of time to process their implications.Postnord, the Nordic logistics company, and Italy’s postal service announced similar suspensions effective Saturday.“In the absence of different instructions from US authorities Poste Italiane will be forced, like other European postal operators, to temporarily suspend acceptance of all shipments containing goods destined for the United States, starting August 23. Mail shipments not containing merchandise will continue to be accepted,” Poste Italiane said Friday.Shipping by services such as DHL Express remains possible, it added.Björn Bergman, head of PostNord’s Group Brand and Communication, said the pause was “unfortunate but necessary to ensure full compliance of the newly implemented rules.”In the Netherlands, PostNL spokesperson Wout Witteveen said the Trump administration is pressing ahead with the new duties despite U.S. authorities lacking a system to collect them. He said that PostNL is working closely with its U.S. counterparts to find a solution.“If you have something to send to America, you should do it today,” Witteveen told The Associated Press.Austrian Post, Austria’s leading logistics and postal service provider, stated that the last acceptance of commercial shipments to the U.S., including Puerto Rico, will take place Tuesday.France’s national postal service, La Poste, said the U.S. did not provide full details or allow enough time for the French postal service to prepare for new customs procedures.“Despite discussions with U.S. customs services, no time was provided to postal operators to re-organize and assure the necessary computer updates to conform to the new rules,” it said in a statement.PostEurop, an association of 51 European public postal operators, said that if no solution can be found by Aug. 29 all its members will likely follow suit. Anderson reported from New York. Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris; Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece; Stephanie Lichtenstein in Vienna; Brian Melley in London and Molly Quell in Amsterdam contributed to this report. Demetris Nellas and Mae Anderson, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
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