WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - Republican presidential

candidate Donald Trump said he supports TikTok even as a

potential ban looms if Chinese-parent company ByteDance fails to

divest the short video app's U.S. assets.

"I'm for TikTok because you need competition. If you don't

have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram," Trump told

Bloomberg BusinessWeek in an interview posted Tuesday. Trump

previously called TikTok, which is used by 170 million

Americans, a threat but then joined TikTok last month.

Trump, who has criticized Meta Platforms ( META )-owned Facebook

and Instagram for

suspending him for two years

in the wake of the deadly Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6,

2021, told an interviewer in June he would never support a

TikTok ban.

TikTok declined to comment. As president, Trump tried to ban

TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat in 2020 but the move was blocked

by the courts. In June 2021, President Joe Biden withdrew a

series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban WeChat

and TikTok.

Trump holds a majority stake in social media company Trump

Media and Technology Group ( DJT ) that operates rival network

Truth Social. Trump Media ( DJT ) has a $7 billion market cap despite

quarterly revenue of around $770,000 - comparable to two U.S.

Starbucks shops.

In September, a U.S. appeals court will hold oral arguments

on legal challenges to a new law requiring China-based ByteDance

to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.

The hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the

District of Columbia will put the fate of TikTok in the middle

of the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

Signed by Biden on April 24, the law gives ByteDance until

Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The White House says it

wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security

grounds, but not a ban on TikTok. Biden's campaign joined TikTok

in February.

Driven by worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could

access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the

measure was passed overwhelmingly in Congress in April just

weeks after being introduced.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)