Once again, the Trump administration is hyping a deal that could see TikTok finally sold to US owners to avoid a nationwide ban that Congress successfully argued was otherwise necessary to protect national security.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the US and China had ironed out a "framework" for the deal, but ultimately, Donald Trump will be responsible for closing the deal on a call this Friday with China's president, Xi Jinping, CNBC reported. Critically, Bessent said that the framework pointed to a "switch to US-controlled ownership," the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
Presumably TikTok won't shut down ahead of Trump's call with Xi, but TikTok risked going dark as soon as Wednesday. That's the latest deadline for the forced sale after Trump extended the deadline three times as negotiations with China remained tense.
For China, approving the TikTok sale appeared to be a key bargaining chip in trade talks with Trump, with China seemingly in no rush to grant approval.
Rather than warming to the idea, ahead of talks in Madrid on Monday, Bessent had suggested that China had made a "very aggressive ask," pushing the US to make "concessions on trade and technology in exchange for agreeing to divest from the popular social media app," Reuters reported. China's long-held hard stance is why some experts told Reuters the chances of a deal being reached this week were low, as Bessent insisted that the US was "not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app."
As China likely continues to seek meaningful concessions—seemingly unwilling to put Xi on the phone with Trump until the Chinese president knows what to expect from the call—it seems clear that the sale is not yet a done deal.
According to Bessent, China agreed to "commercial terms" and "technical details" of a deal "between two parties," but Xi and Trump still needed to discuss the terms—as well as possibly China's demands to ease export controls on chips and other high-tech goods—before the deal can be finalized, Reuters reported.
ByteDance, TikTok's current owner, which in the past has opposed the sale, did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment.
While experts told Reuters that finalizing the TikTok deal this week could be challenging, Trump seems confident. On Truth Social, the US president boasted that talks with China have been going "very well" and claimed that TikTok users will soon be "very happy."
"A deal was also reached on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save," Trump said, confirming that he would speak to Xi on Friday and claiming that their relationship "remains a very strong one!!!"
China accuses US of “economic coercion”
However, China's Ministry of Commerce spokesperson on Monday continued to slam US export controls and tariffs frustrating China. The spokesperson suggested that those trade restrictions "constitute the containment and suppression of China’s development of high-tech industries," like advanced computer chips and artificial intelligence, NBC News reported.
"This is a typical act of unilateral bullying and economic coercion," the spokesperson said, indicating it may even be viewed as a retaliation violating the temporary truce.
Rather than committing to de-escalate tensions, both countries have recently taken fresh jabs in the trade war. On Monday, China announced two probes into US semiconductors, as well as an antitrust ruling against Nvidia and "an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector," NBC News reported.
Those probes came after the US added 23 Chinese companies to an "entity list" imposing further restrictions to deter alleged national security risks and support US interests. The US also recently has encouraged "European allies to impose 100 percent tariffs of their own on Chinese products," the SCMP reported, although so far no countries in the European Union are expected to actually agree.
It's possible that China will agree to a TikTok sale despite these ongoing escalations in the trade war. Bessent suggested that relations between the countries are "still very good at the highest levels." He indicated that US negotiations with China beyond the TikTok sale would resume in "about a month" at "a different location," the SCMP reported.
Neither country can afford to return to the prior tariff rates during the heat of tit-for-tat retaliations, which freaked out Big Tech earlier this year.
But experts told the SCMP that China has found that placing curbs on rare earths is perhaps the "most effective card played against the US in the tariff war." That bargaining chip alone may allow China to "maintain its strategic upper hand," while Trump appears to be stuck following through on a campaign promise to save TikTok.
Resolving the larger trade war would likely require an in-person meeting between Trump and Xi, which could come before the end of the current temporary truce on November 10, the SCMP reported.
Experts suggested that China may be motivated to end the trade war, since if either side intensifies the war, they risk "self-harm," the SCMP reported.
However, China is likely also closely monitoring a Supreme Court fight "that could strike down the US tariffs on Chinese goods imposed this year, potentially weakening Trump’s leverage over Beijing," Reuters reported.
That ruling won't come until 2026, and China may not be motivated to solidly bargain with Trump until the court decides if the tariffs are even legal. Ultimately, that may mean that approval of the TikTok sale will be delayed again, perhaps forcing Trump to extend the deadline again as TikTok users wonder how critical the national security risk could really be if Trump remains so laissez-faire about not enforcing the law.
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