TikTok is one step closer to disappearing in the US after a panel of federal judges on Friday upheld a new law that could lead to the banning of the popular Chinese-owned video app by mid-January.

The three judges, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law. The decision could be a death blow for the app in one of its biggest markets. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok to entertain and inform themselves, turning it into a cultural phenomenon. The looming loss of the app in the US had spurred concern from free speech advocates.

The decision also raises new questions for President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly signalled his support for the app, but who doesn’t have a clear path for rescuing it under the new law.

The law, signed in April, requires TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company by January 19 or face a ban in the US. TikTok, which has been in the cross hairs of politicians since 2020 because of its ties to China, has said a sale is impossible, in part because it would be blocked by the Chinese government. The company argued that the law unfairly singled out TikTok and that a ban would infringe on the First Amendment rights of American users.

The judges disagreed with TikTok’s argument. They said the law was “carefully crafted to deal with only control by a foreign adversary”, and didn’t run afoul of the First Amendment.