TikTok asked a federal court Monday to temporarily freeze a law that requires its Chinese parent company to sell the app or face a ban in the United States, as it looked to the Supreme Court and the incoming Trump administration to rescue it.

The company and a group of its users suffered a blow Friday when judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously denied their petitions to overturn the law. TikTok asked the same court Monday to temporarily block the law until the Supreme Court decided TikTok’s planned appeal of that decision.

It isn’t clear whether the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case, though experts say it is likely.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is facing new peril under the law that, citing national security concerns, calls on ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban Jan. 19. TikTok, which boasts 170 million users in the United States, has said that a sale is impossible in part because of restrictions from the Chinese government and that a subsequent ban would violate the First Amendment rights of users.

TikTok also suggested in its filing that the temporary freeze would give President-elect Donald Trump more time to try to rescue the app, as he has pledged to do. Right now, the ban would take effect a day before his inauguration. TikTok has asked the court to decide on the freeze by Dec. 16.

The government has already pushed back on TikTok’s emergency request for the freeze, called an injunction. Lawyers for the Department of Justice said in a filing Monday that the court should deny the request, and allow TikTok and its users to directly ask the Supreme Court for the injunction.

The U.S. government appears to be keen for the law to go into effect as scheduled, said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University.

“The government has a win in its hands, and it hopes to run out the clock,” Chander said. “There will be pressure for President Trump to fulfill his campaign promise, including from his many admirers on TikTok, so even a short delay might change the dynamics in the case.”

The prospect of losing TikTok quickly sent social media into a flurry over the weekend, as creators called on fans to follow them on YouTube and Instagram, and talent agents told TikTok stars to hold off on big purchases, like buying a home.

Lawyers for TikTok users said in a filing that the court should freeze the law, in part, because the government allowed the app to operate without restriction during the U.S. presidential election. They also noted that the law offered a potential 90-day extension, if sale negotiations were underway.

“TikTok is, at its core, its 170 million American users,” Michael Hughes, a spokesperson for TikTok, said in a statement. The company pointed to data from an economic impact report that it funded, which said that small businesses on TikTok stood to lose more than $1 billion in revenue if the app went away.