Kathmandu: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington has reached a “framework” agreement with China over the ownership of TikTok’s American operations, paving the way for US control of the platform.
Bessent told reporters the framework was agreed during trade talks in Madrid, adding that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to finalize the deal on Friday. Beijing has not yet commented.
Trump said on Truth Social that the Madrid talks had “gone very well,” referring to “a certain company that young people in our country very much wanted to save.”
The deal comes as TikTok faces a looming US ban unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells its American division. In January, the US Supreme Court upheld a 2024 law mandating the sale, citing national security concerns. The US Justice Department has described TikTok’s access to American user data as “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale.”
ByteDance has denied the allegations, insisting TikTok’s US arm operates independently and that no data has been shared with Beijing. The company has also argued that the ban violates free speech rights for its 170 million American users.
TikTok briefly went offline in January after the law took effect, before Trump issued a 75-day postponement. The deadline for a sale has since been extended three times, with the current grace period expiring on 17 September.
Figures previously linked to a potential purchase of TikTok’s US business include Tesla owner Elon Musk, YouTube creator MrBeast, and billionaire investor Frank McCourt.
The TikTok announcement came on the second day of US-China trade talks in Madrid, part of efforts to ease tensions in the ongoing trade war between the two countries.
-BBC