Washington (AFP)

TikTok must be sold or blocked in the United States because of concerns for national security, warned US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday after two days of threats and pressure against the international social network of the Chinese group ByteDance.

The platform "can not exist as it is," he said in an interview on the ABC channel.

He did not go back on the words of President Donald Trump, who announced Friday evening that he was "banning" the very popular application for sharing light videos.

On the other hand, he recalled that the CFIUS, the agency of his ministry responsible for ensuring that foreign investments do not pose a risk to national security, was investigating TikTok.

In a context of political and trade tensions with China, Washington has accused the interface for months of being able to be used by Chinese intelligence for surveillance purposes. TikTok has always firmly denied any data sharing with Beijing.

"The whole agency agrees that TikTok cannot stay in the current format because it risks sending information on 100 million Americans," he said.

Steven Mnuchin said he spoke to Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer in the Senate.

"We agree that change is necessary. Force a sale or block the app. Everyone agrees that it cannot exist as it is."

But Friday evening, Donald Trump also let it be known that he was opposed to a takeover by an American group, a solution that nevertheless agreed with most of the actors involved, including ByteDance, according to the New York Times.

According to the Wall Street Journal, negotiations for Microsoft's acquisition of the US business of TikTok were at a standstill on Saturday because of the president's comments.

TikTok responded with a video posted to the network on Saturday, assuring users that the app was here to "stay."

"We're not going anywhere," said Vanessa Pappas, head of the US branch of TikTok.

She pledged 10,000 jobs in the United States over three years and added that the company was working to build the "safest" app, "because we know it's the right thing to do."

TikTok is used by a billion users around the world, but not in China, where ByteDance operates an app on the same principle but separate, with a different name.

© 2020 AFP