The U.S. Treasury Secretary has said Washington reached a “framework” deal with China on the ownership of TikTok’s American operations.
Scott Bessent said the framework was set in trade talks in Madrid to pave the way for US ownership. He added that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would “complete” the deal on Friday.
Trump said on Truth Social that the talks had “gone very well”, while China confirmed a framework agreement but said no deal would be made at the expense of Chinese companies’ interests.
A deadline is looming for the Chinese owner of TikTok to find a buyer for its American operations or face a shutdown and ban in the US.
Bessent announced the “framework” deal on the second day of negotiations between the US and China aimed at ending a trade war.
He said the threat to shut down the social media site in the US had persuaded Chinese negotiators to drop demands for reduced tariffs as part of any deal to sell TikTok’s US arm.
The agreed upon commercial terms would protect US national security interests, he added.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer, part of the US delegation in Madrid, said the deal struck was “subject to the leaders’ approval”, but added his team was “not… in the business of having repetitive [ban] extensions”.
China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, said his country would not reach a deal with the US at the expense of its own principles and Chinese companies’ interests. Its leadership would review any deal before it was agreed, he added.
In January, the US Supreme Court upheld a law passed in April 2024, banning the video-sharing app unless its parent company ByteDance sold its US division.
The US Justice Department has said that TikTok’s access to data on American users poses “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale”.
ByteDance has repeatedly insisted that its US operations are fully independent and no data has been shared with the Chinese government. The company argued that the ban would violate free speech protections for its 170 million US users.
TikTok went dark for a day in January after the law came into effect, before Trump intervened and issued a 75-day postponement.
The deadline for a sale has since been extended three times, and the latest delay to the ban is due to end on 17 September.
Various figures have previously been touted as potential buyers of the platform, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, YouTube creator MrBeast and billionaire investor Frank McCourt.
‘Backdoor’ for Beijing?
On Monday, Bessent said the deal “completely respects US national security concerns.”
The details were sparse, however, and some experts were sceptical over issues including who will control TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm.
Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, said it was also unclear if the data of TikTok’s American users would be fully stored and encrypted domestically, and whether independent audits would occur to detect backdoor access by Beijing.
“Until these details are clarified, the risk is that the deal resolves ownership on paper but leaves core vulnerabilities untouched,” Ms Kreps said.
Jim Secreto, a former national security official in the Biden administration, said Beijing has control over whether the algorithm will be transferred to a new owner, which is probably why the TikTok deal was folded into broader trade and tariff negotiations.
If national security concerns were addressed, the deal “would be a major breakthrough,” he said.
He added that the stakes were high as ByteDance was now one of the largest AI firms in China – and still operating as it did when Congress decided action was necessary.
“The data TikTok collects from Americans today could help train the models that power China’s military and intelligence capabilities tomorrow,” Mr Secreto said.
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