The US inched one step closer to taking over TikTok’s algorithm after President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.
Neither leader confirmed that China has agreed to the terms of Trump’s proposed deal, which would create a US version of TikTok that licenses the Chinese-owned algorithm. But the Chinese Commerce Ministry provided a statement following the meeting; translated, it indicates that “China will properly resolve TikTok-related issues with the United States.”
Trump, who has long vowed to “save” TikTok, was notably silent on Thursday, but US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News ahead of Trump’s meeting with Xi that “we finalized the TikTok agreement in terms of getting Chinese approval.” According to Bessent, the deal will “finally” be resolved over the “coming weeks and months,” Reuters reported.
Whether China will require changes to Trump’s deal will likely become clear soon, but terms allowing ByteDance to retain a 20 percent ownership stake and keep the algorithm are widely viewed as favorable to China. Dan Ives, a tech analyst at the financial advisory firm Wedbush Securities, memorably quipped that “buying TikTok without the algorithm would be like buying a Ferrari without the engine.”
With no deal reached during Trump and Xi’s meeting, it’s likely that China isn’t satisfied with Trump’s proposal—or at the very least is reluctant to relinquish control of an app that unexpectedly became an “American social media phenomenon,” Bloomberg reported. Louise Loo, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, told CNBC that we simply don’t know enough details yet to determine if “Beijing’s interests in the TikTok contention truly aligns with President Trump’s motivations to spin off the entity’s US business.”
ByteDance did not respond to Ars’ request for comment. The TikTok owner has remained quiet throughout the Trump administration’s negotiations with China over the US sale, which is supposed to resolve US national security concerns that China may influence content on the app.