US President Donald Trump said Sunday that China would have approved a TikTok deal if Washington hadn’t imposed new tariffs on Chinese imports just days earlier. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said, “The report is that we had a deal, pretty much for TikTok, not a deal, but pretty close, and then China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they’d approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs.”

The remarks came just two days after Trump slapped a 34 percent tariff on all Chinese imports, a move that prompted Beijing’s hesitation over the potential TikTok transaction. Trump extended the deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer by 75 days to avoid being banned in the United States, giving more time for negotiations.

The video-sharing app, with over 170 million American users, faces a possible shutdown under a US law passed last year unless it cuts ties with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Trump indicated his administration was close to brokering a deal that involved several investors, but he did not provide details.