American officials say they are close to a deal to save TikTok. Again.
The United States and China have reached the “framework of a deal” on the app that had evaded the two sides all year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Monday after talks between the two governments. He added that Beijing, which has long been a wild card in the negotiations, supported the framework.
But further details about a deal for TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, were not revealed. President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China will talk on Friday to “complete” the deal, Mr. Bessent said.
While details of the framework could not be learned, ByteDance had in recent weeks been working toward having investors join its existing U.S. investors to lower its stake in TikTok to less than 20 percent, two people familiar with the talks said.
The question is: Will a new deal stick?
TikTok has reached the verge of a U.S. deal several times already, after a federal law required the Chinese-owned app to find a new owner by January or face a ban in the United States. President Trump has extended that deadline three times.
In the past, companies like Oracle, which provides computing power to other firms and has helped to host TikTok’s American operation for years, were in the running to buy a stake in the app. But again and again, each “deal” to save the app has met resistance from Beijing or been delayed for other reasons.
“We’ve seen this movie before where we get really close to a deal and we get an announcement that something’s coming, only to have it fall apart,” said Lindsay Gorman, a senior adviser to the Biden administration who worked on technology and security issues. “There are many open questions that we hope will be answered between now and Friday.”
A spokeswoman for Vice President JD Vance, who Mr. Trump assigned to broker a TikTok deal, said the arrangement will allow Americans to “continue safely enjoying the highly popular app.” TikTok did not offer a comment.
TikTok’s future has been clouded by uncertainty for years. TikTok’s feed of short videos shapes culture and politics, turning songs into hits, minting new comedy stars and acting as a source of news and information about current events. But the company faces accusations that it poses a national security risk because Beijing could use the app to seek sensitive data on Americans, or to spread propaganda to advance its policy goals.
Since January, Mr. Trump has not enforced the law, upheld by the Supreme Court, which bans app stores and cloud computing companies from hosting TikTok unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. In April, the administration believed it was close to a deal again. But Beijing could wield some power to block a sale, and it balked after Mr. Trump announced a slew of tariffs on China.
In 2020, when Mr. Trump first tried to force a TikTok sale, Beijing placed export restrictions on technology that sounded similar to the app’s recommendation algorithm. That move raised the prospect that China could try to stop the sale of the app.
This spring, the administration again believed it was close to a deal that would pass muster in Beijing. New investors would own half an American TikTok entity. Chinese entities would own less than 20 percent.
Then ByteDance told the White House that China, now on the receiving end of U.S. trade restrictions, was not comfortable with the structure. Some investors who originally contemplated taking part in that deal, like the private equity firm Blackstone, have since dropped out, two people familiar with the situation said.
On Monday, Li Chenggang, China’s top trade negotiator, said the two countries had reached a “basic framework consensus” on issues including TikTok. He and Mr. Bessent spoke after new trade discussions between American and Chinese officials in Madrid.
“China will never seek to reach any agreement at the expense of its principled stance, corporate interests, and international fairness and justice,” Mr. Li said via a translator at a news conference.
On Monday afternoon, experts and critics of TikTok were waiting to learn the details of the deal to see if it would satisfy the terms of the law passed by Congress last year. Some, like Ms. Gorman, wondered if the deal would stick at all.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor who has written about the nonenforcement of the TikTok ban, said that he would “not believe this until I see a legally executed agreement.”
If an arrangement is finalized between China and the United States, it is not yet clear what the Trump administration might have to concede, Mr. Rozenshtein said.
“China has a lot of leverage here,” he said.
Many of the reactions from the app’s users on Monday illustrated fatigue after months of uncertainty.
“If the U.S. buys TikTok, I’m out,” one user commented on CNN’s TikTok post about Mr. Bessent’s announcement. Another wrote, “We are going to abandon TikTok.”
Emmett Lindner and Sapna Maheshwari contributed reporting.
David McCabe is a Times reporter who covers the complex legal and policy issues created by the digital economy and new technologies.
Lauren Hirsch is a Times reporter who covers deals and dealmakers in Wall Street and Washington.
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