The United States of America and the People’s Republic of China have successfully reached a final agreement on the terms concerning the future of the social media network TikTok. The document is expected to be formally signed by the leaders of the two nations, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, during their meeting scheduled for October 30. This information was disclosed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in an interview with CBS News, reports Baltimore Chronicle with a link to CBS News.
“We have reached a final agreement on TikTok. We reached it in Madrid, and I believe that all the details are agreed upon as of today, and on Thursday (October 30 – ed.) in Korea, the two leaders will conclude this deal,” Bessent stated. President Trump had issued an executive order last month authorizing the sale of the TikTok platform to a group of American investors, though the specific details of this commercial arrangement remain undisclosed, according to CBS. Scott Bessent did not elaborate on the specifics, explaining that he was “not involved in the commercial part of the deal.” The Treasury Secretary added, “My job was to get China’s assent to approve the deal, and I believe we successfully executed that job over the last two days”.
It is worth recalling that in March 2024, a bill was passed in the U.S. aiming to compel the Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners within six months; otherwise, the application faced a ban within the country. The platform had been under intense scrutiny by national security officials in Washington, who voiced concerns about potential influence from the Chinese government. Lawmakers and the administration of the previous President, Joe Biden, maintained that as long as TikTok was owned by a Chinese company, it remained subject to the dictates of China’s authoritarian regime. Trump had previously stated he would postpone the ban on TikTok but insisted that the social platform should be at least half-owned by American investors. The final resolution was eventually reached after several extensions of the deadline.
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