A framework deal has been reached between China and the United States over ownership of the popular social video platform TikTok, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen said after weekend trade talks in Spain.
Bessant told a news conference after the latest round of trade talks between the world’s two largest economies concluded in Madrid that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping will hold talks on Friday to potentially finalize a deal. He said the deal would aim to shift ownership to the United States.
“We will not discuss the commercial terms of the transaction,” Bessen said. “It is between two private parties. But commercial terms have been agreed upon.”
Li Chenggang, a Chinese international trade spokesman, said the two sides had reached a “basic system consensus” to properly resolve issues related to TikTok through cooperation, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade cooperation, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Li said the two sides had “candid, in-depth” discussions about TikTok and China’s concerns.
The Madrid meeting is the fourth round of trade talks between U.S. and Chinese officials since Trump launched a tariff war on Chinese goods in April. A fifth round of talks is likely to take place “in the coming weeks,” Bessen said, as the two governments plan for a possible summit between Trump and Xi later this year or early next year to cement a trade deal.
However, nothing has been confirmed and analysts say possible trade frictions could delay the visit.
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Chinese officials did not immediately speak to the media after the Madrid talks, but Chinese Vice President He Lifeng, who led the Chinese delegation, was seen smiling as he left the venue.
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During Joe Biden’s Democratic presidency, Congress and the White House used national security considerations to approve a US ban on TikTok, provided its parent company, bytedance, sold a controlling stake.
Republican Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline for TikTok’s shutdown, even though the law only allows for one 90-day revocation and only if there is a deal on the table and a formal notification to Congress.
The current extension expires on Wednesday, two days before Trump and Xi are scheduled to discuss the final details of the basic sanctions. While Trump has not directly addressed the upcoming deadline, he has suggested he may delay the ban indefinitely.
Tiktok is one of more than 100 apps developed over the past decade by the technology firm, founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming and headquartered in the northwestern Haidian district of Beijing.
In 2016, Bydedance launched a short-form video platform called Douyin in China and followed up with an international version called Tiktok. It then bought Musical.ly, a lip-syncing platform popular with teens in the US and Europe, and merged it with TikTok while keeping the app separate from Douyin.
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Soon after, the app boomed in popularity in the US and many other countries, becoming the first Chinese platform to make a serious inroads in the West. Unlike other social media platforms that focused on cultivating connections between users, TikTok tailored content to people’s interests.
The often silly videos and music videos creators posted gave TikTok an image as a sunny corner of the internet where users could find fun and a sense of authenticity. Finding an audience on the platform helped launch musical artists like Lil Nas X.
TikTok gained more traction during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, when short dances that went viral became the app’s mainstay. To better compete, Instagram and YouTube eventually came up with their own tools for creating short-form videos, known as reels and shorts. By that point, TikTok was a real hit.
Challenges have come in tandem with TikTok’s success. U.S. officials have raised concerns about the company’s roots and ownership, pointing to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government. Other concerns have grown over the proprietary algorithm that populates what users see on the app.
Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Didi Tang and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.
& copy 2025. Canadian Press
