TikTok will be banned from US app stores from September 20th, unless a last minute compromise is agreed with president Donald Trump. Owner Bytedance had previously been given a September 15th deadline to find a buyer for its US operations.

The Department of Commerce said it would bar people in the US from downloading the video-sharing app through all app stores across all platforms.

Messaging app WeChat, owned by Chinese digital giant Tencent, is set to suffer the same fate.

The Trump administration says the companies threaten national security and could pass user data to China.  The Chinese government and both companies deny this.

WeChat will effectively shut down in the US on September 20th, but people will still be able to use TikTok as normal until November 12th, when it could become fully banned. If a planned partnership between Oracle and ByteDance is agreed and approved by Trump, the app would not be banned.

It is not yet known whether Trump will approve the deal, but he is expected to review it before the September 20th deadline.