TikTok, tariffs, and trials: Everything happening in tech policy in April

As TikTok’s April 5th sell-by date approaches, Americans are back to where they stood before the original January deadline: watching anxiously to see if a major social media app gets banned. But that’s far from the only big event we’ll see over the coming month. April is filled with momentous turns in long-running tech policy stories — some possibly industry-changing, others at risk of fizzling out.

The first two and a half months of President Donald Trump’s second term were highly consequential for the tech industry, which faces real challenges despite largely cozying up to Trump. After the chaos of the fired FTC commissioners, DOGE’s dismantling of the federal government, and constantly delayed tariffs, the next few weeks could be extraordinarily busy, too. Deadlines that Trump let slip are coming up, as are long-planned ones, such as those covering TikTok, new tariffs, and a pair of juggernaut antitrust cases involving Apple and Meta.

Here’s everything you need to know to be prepared.

Trump said he intentionally chose April 2nd over April Fools’ Day because he’s “a little superstitious,” but it’s still wise to expect the unexpected for taxes on imported goods. The official order he released last week clarifies a 25 percent tariff on automobile imports will take effect at 12:01AM ET on April 3rd. He’s also threatened to implement:

Trump’s tariffs have fluctuated and stalled amid blowback and discussions with foreign leaders, but the early April deadline for vehicle imports to the US has held so far. Trump has promised a permanent 25 percent tariff on cars and trucks that are imported into the country, while the reciprocal tariffs are meant to alleviate what his administration views as imbalances with trade partners.

The auto tariff is expected to apply to both foreign manufacturers and American car companies that manufacture vehicles abroad and import them to the US. Experts anticipate the cost will ultimately raise prices for US consumers buying new cars.

April 5th: TikTok ban… or extension

TikTok is still legally required to divest from its parent company ByteDance, and as with its original January deadline, it’s running out the clock before a ban kicks in.

Trump signed an executive order delaying the ban on his first day in office, promising not to enforce the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act against TikTok service providers — including companies like Oracle, Akamai, Fastly, Amazon Web Services, Apple, and Google — for 75 days. That order was already legally questionable, given that the law requiring TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest it to operate in the US already took effect and was upheld by the Supreme Court. Apple and Google held off on returning TikTok to their app stores until Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly sent them a letter assuring they’d be immune from legal consequences under the Trump administration if they did.

Trump has promised a TikTok sale agreement before the deadline, but the details remain vague. It’s still quite possible that he will simply extend the arbitrary deadline again, attempting to keep the status quo while supposedly hammering out the deal. But as Senate Democrats have warned, repeated legally dodgy extensions leave TikTok’s service providers increasingly vulnerable — the statute of limitations on the law extends past Trump’s term, and they risk hundreds of billions of dollars in fines for defying the act. Apple, AWS, Google, Akamai, Fastly, and Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.

Alternatively, Trump may present the details of a deal (however vague) by the deadline. Multiple contenders have thrown their hat in the ring to take TikTok off ByteDance’s hands, including billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and Perplexity.

Oracle is reportedly in a leading position for a partnership with TikTok to ensure that US user data can’t be accessed by the Chinese government — but the reported details sound a whole lot like Project Texas, which US officials previously dismissed as too porous to protect US national security. It’s not clear this would meet the legal requirements for divestiture, and even the top Republican on the House Select Committee on China has warned that “ByteDance must fully divest its control of TikTok and have no say in its operations; nor can the two share data, content, or algorithms.” There’s also the matter of whether the Chinese government will agree to let any version of a sale happen.

Essentially, based on the options currently on the table, we’re probably about to see the start of yet another legal battle around TikTok.

April 14th: FTC v. Meta begins

The FTC filed its antimonopoly suit against Meta back in late 2020, when it was still known as Facebook, and the two sides will finally meet in court on April 14th to kick off the trial.

For several weeks, Judge James Boasberg will hear testimony on whether Meta illegally monopolized the personal social networking market, in part through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, which the FTC alleges could have been formidable competitors. If he agrees with the government that Meta broke the law, both sides will return later to figure out what should be done about it — including, potentially, unwinding the acquisitions.

It’s been a rocky case for the FTC, all the way back to Trump’s first term, when the original lawsuit was filed with support from two minority Democratic commissioners and the Republican agency chair. That first complaint — alongside a separate lawsuit filed by 48 state and district attorneys general — was thrown out by the judge.

But Boasberg left the option for the FTC to try again. The agency filed an amended complaint during the Biden administration under Democratic chair Lina Khan, seeking to resolve concerns with the initial complaint. The result was sufficient to move the lawsuit forward; in November 2024, after Boasberg mostly denied Meta’s motion to dismiss, he resolved that the case would move to trial. Now, that trial will begin with the FTC back under Republican control.

April 22nd: Google Search remedies trial begins

Also in DC’s District Court, the second phase of the Google Search monopoly trial begins next month. Judge Amit Mehta ruled last summer that Google has illegally monopolized the online general search market, as well as the market for search text ads. Now, Google and the Justice Department will spend two weeks debating what changes the judge should impose to remedy the harm created by the illegal monopolization (a characterization Google intends to appeal).

At the end of the Biden administration, the DOJ said that appropriate remedies would include forcing Google to spin out its Chrome browser — a key access point for search engines — syndicate the data that makes its search results so powerful, and ban exclusionary deals like its multibillion dollar agreement with Apple. After the Trump administration took over, the DOJ maintained many of the same asks, though it modified a few, including letting Google pay Apple for non-search-related agreements. Mehta has said he aims to issue a decision by this August.

Apple is not a party to the case, but it has fought to play a bigger role in the remedies phase because it fears its interests might not be sufficiently represented by Google. But an appeals court agreed with Mehta that Apple will have to settle for filing briefs to explain its point of view, rather than taking a more active role in the trial.