China, Trump and TikTok
Digest more
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed on Sunday that the U.S. and China had reached a deal on TikTok.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China have finalized a deal transferring TikTok’s U.S. operations to American investors, easing trade tensions.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on CBS News' Face the Nation that China and the United States “ironed out” the details of the TikTok deal, and that an official announcement is expected when the two leaders meet on Thursday. Newsweek has filled out an online press form to contact TikTok for comment on Sunday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday that China and the United States had reached “a final deal on TikTok,” but offered few details.
This comes about a month after President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the new TikTok deal met the requirements of the 2024 law that banned TikTok from operating in the U.S. At the time, Vice President JD Vance said the deal values the U.S. TikTok assets at $14 billion, as Deadline reported.
A TikTok deal could buy them time for exactly that. The US is a huge export market for China, and China is a major buyer of American agricultural goods. High tariffs would hurt both. There are also export controls on both sides, especially restricting US access to rare earths, which China has a near monopoly over.
The White House has answered what had been one of the major outstanding questions regarding its pending deal to transfer TikTok’s US operations to a majority American ownership group: Under the agreement,
Lawmakers have long opposed TikTok’s algorithm because the app’s parent company, ByteDance, has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could "consummate" the TikTok deal announced last month when they meet on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
TikTok, to be fair, may be the wrong audience for either option. It’s high turnover stuff. User stats will move like a shopping bag in a hurricane, whatever happens. This is the “non-existent attention span” market, where you suck a screen for hours, days, or years, regardless.
Feedback