The United States and China are ready to move forward on a TikTok deal, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Bessent had already said last month that the two countries reached a “framework” on a deal during discussions in Madrid, and President Donald Trump subsequently signed an executive order to facilitate the transaction.
In a Sunday morning appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation, Bessent said the U.S. and China have reached “a final deal on TikTok.”
“We reached one in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea,” Bessent said. He declined to discuss the details of the agreement, but added, “My remit was to get the Chinese to agree to approve the transaction, and I believe we successfully accomplished that over the past two days.”
Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline of a law that requires TikTok’s owner ByteDance to sell the app or see it banned in the United States.
Under the terms of his executive order, TikTok’s U.S. operations — including its recommendation algorithm, source code, and content moderation — will come under the control of a new board of directors, with Oracle becoming responsible for security operations.
Oracle (led by Trump ally Larry Ellison), Fox Corp (owner of Fox News), Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake Management have been reported as investors in the new joint venture, with Fox’s participation seemingly confirmed by Trump.
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Bessent made today’s comments from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Chinese and American trade negotiators also said they had reached a framework for an agreement over tariffs and other trade issues.
U.S. trade negotiator Jamieson Greer told reporters that rare earth minerals were covered in the discussion, though he did not specify how. (China has said it will tighten export controls on those minerals, which are critical to the manufacture of semiconductors and other tech products.)
“We talked about extending the truce, we talked about rare earths, of course, we talked about all kinds of topics,” Greer said.
