This combination of pictures created, June 2, shows a man holding a smartphone displaying the logo of the Chinese social media platform Tiktok in an office in Paris, April 19, and former U.S. President and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking to the media as he arrives for his criminal trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, May 30. AFP-Yonhap

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in TikTok's legal case on Friday, urging the justices to temporarily halt a law requiring the popular app to be banned by January 19 unless it is sold to a non-Chinese buyer.

Earlier the same day, TikTok, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, filed a brief with America's highest court reiterating its position that the law was unconstitutional and should be overturned.

Trump "takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute," according to the submission. "Instead, he respectfully requests that the court consider staying the act's deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case."

This would permit the "incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case," it added.

Trump surprised many when, earlier this year, he began questioning the legislation that led to the ban that TikTok is racing against the clock to suspend, even if temporarily. In his first term as president, he signed an executive order to ban TikTok, an action later rejected by a lower federal court.

Although the president-elect has yet to post on his personal TikTok account since winning the U.S. election last month, he turned to the video app during his campaign to engage young Americans. Nearly 30 percent of TikTok's 170 million U.S.-based users are between 25 and 34 years old.

"I am gonna save TikTok," Trump promised in a June post that got more than 8 million likes. Currently, the president-elect has more than 14 million followers on the platform.

Trump's brief, Friday, noted that he officially returns to the White House a day after the law banning TikTok takes effect.

He called it "unfortunate timing" that "interferes" with the president-elect's "ability to manage the United States' foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights."

The filing further stated that Trump "has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions" and that "he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means."

It asserted Trump "alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national-security concerns."

The incoming president had stepped up his support for TikTok before Friday's move.

Last week, he suggested he might offer the app a lifeline.

"We did go on TikTok and we had a great response with billions of views," Trump said at an event in Phoenix, Arizona, praising the app's role in boosting his popularity among young American voters. "They brought me a chart ... and as I looked at it, I said, maybe we got to keep this sucker around for a little while," he added.

As president, Trump could grant TikTok an additional 90 days to find a new buyer and could request the Justice Department to pause enforcement of the ban.

Earlier this month, Trump reportedly met with TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi at Mar-a-Lago, his private resort in Florida.

Just hours before, Trump signalled his willingness to block the TikTok ban, saying at a press conference: "We'll take a look at TikTok. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok. TikTok had an impact, so we're taking a look at it."

Read the full story at SCMP.