President Donald Trump says the United States and China have a framework agreement to keep TikTok operating in America under U.S. control. The timing is urgent. A new deadline arrives on Wednesday after months of extensions that kept the app online while negotiations continued. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides had reached a “framework for a deal,” while Chinese officials described a “basic consensus.” Trump added on Truth Social, “A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday.”

Specific terms have not been published, but several details emerged from officials and reporting. Bessent said in Madrid that the agreement is a framework, not a signed contract, and that it will be finalized after Trump speaks with Xi Jinping on Friday. The New York Times reported that ByteDance had “been working toward having investors join its existing U.S. investors to lower its stake in TikTok to less than 20 percent.”

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer framed the approach this way: “We were very focused on TikTok and making sure that it was a deal that is fair for the Chinese and completely respects US national security concerns.” The White House declined to share commercial terms, saying they were “between two private parties,” but Bessent emphasized that U.S. negotiators were “not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app.”

The administration did not name the buyer. However, industry watchers expect a group led by Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, whose company already hosts TikTok’s U.S. data and who “briefly became the world’s richest person” last week. Other bidders have surfaced. A team led by Frank McCourt and Kevin O’Leary said it would buy TikTok’s U.S. assets without the core recommendation engine, claiming they could rebuild the algorithm. Analysts question whether a bid without the algorithm can succeed, noting that an Ellison-led syndicate “has the capability of leading a group of investors with the money to buy the algorithm.”

Bessent said Trump and Xi will speak Friday to “complete” the deal. U.S. officials also indicated that a first in-person meeting of Trump’s second term could follow on the president’s Asia trip in late October or early November, but only if real progress is made. As one official summary put it, “Without a TikTok deal in place, a meeting between Trump and Xi wouldn’t be possible.”

Why Washington Sees Risk in a Chinese-Owned TikTok

National security concerns drive the push to separate TikTok from Chinese ownership. The app reaches about 170 million Americans and shapes news consumption and culture. Michael Sobolik, a China expert and author of Countering China’s Great Game, called TikTok “China’s greatest asymmetric advantage against America.” He warned that the Chinese Communist Party can “direct TikTok to suppress or amplify content, effectively shaping public opinion on sensitive issues such as Tibet, the Uyghurs, and Tiananmen Square.” He also described the platform as a tool for “infiltrating our civil discourse.”

European regulators have echoed these fears with enforcement. In May, the EU fined TikTok about $600 million after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission concluded the company “failed to demonstrate that any user data it sends to China would be protected from government access.” The commission argued that Europeans were not “afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the E.U.” Advocacy group Noyb has pressed a broader legal case across Europe, arguing that “transferring Europeans’ personal data is clearly unlawful—and must be terminated immediately,” because China does not offer comparable privacy protections.

Leverage in Influence

The concern is not only raw data. It is also how data and algorithms can be leveraged. As Sobolik notes, control over the feed allows authorities to shape what users see and what they do not. That influence can be subtle. It can boost favored narratives, bury criticism, and target swing audiences in moments of crisis. The ACZ editor summarized the structural problem this way: “By law Chinese citizens must cooperate with Chinese intelligence. As long as this is a Chinese owned company, China will continue to get the information.”

The Long Road to This Moment

The United States has tried to push TikTok into U.S. control for years. In 2020, the first Trump administration attempted to force a sale, but Beijing added export restrictions covering recommendation technologies, which helped derail the deal. In 2024, a bipartisan law required ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a ban. The Supreme Court later upheld the law.

Even so, the app stayed online. TikTok briefly went dark on January 18, the day before the law took effect. On January 19, Trump signaled he would shield app stores and servers from penalties while negotiations continued. He then signed an order on January 20 creating a 75-day pause and later extended it again in June. The date now in focus is September 17. Critics argue these extensions “thwarted the will of Congress,” while supporters say the delays built leverage and kept options open.

Several near-deals flickered and then failed. The Times reported that in the spring “new investors would own half an American TikTok entity,” and Chinese entities “would own less than 20 percent.” Then ByteDance told the White House that Beijing was uncomfortable with the structure, especially after new U.S. tariffs. Some potential investors backed away. As Lindsay Gorman put it, “We’ve seen this movie before where we get really close to a deal… only to have it fall apart.”

Skepticism remains high. Law professor Alan Z. Rozenshtein said he would “not believe this until I see a legally executed agreement.” Usha Haley, a professor of international business, cautioned that for Beijing “the signing of a deal” can be “the beginning, and not the end, of any negotiations,” adding that the “devil would lie in the details behind the optics.” At the same time, U.S. officials are crediting presidential pressure. “Without his leadership and the leverage he provides, we would not have been able to include the deal today,” Bessent said of Trump.

Public reaction is divided. Some users on TikTok say they will quit if U.S. buyers take control. Others express fatigue after months of deadlines and extensions. The cultural relevance of the platform is also part of the political calculus. Reporting noted that pro-Trump content outpaced pro-Harris content during the 2024 campaign, and that TikTok has played a role in European politics as well.

The Geopolitical Stakes

Both sides linked TikTok to a wider trade agenda during talks in Madrid. Bessent said Chinese negotiators arrived with “a very aggressive ask,” but insisted that “national security comes first.” China’s top trade negotiator Li Chenggang said the countries had reached a “basic framework consensus,” but added that Beijing would not agree “at the expense of its principled stance, corporate interests, and international fairness and justice.”

If a final agreement lands, it will test whether a foreign-controlled platform with massive influence can be re-anchored under rules acceptable to a democracy. As Haley observed, “TikTok sits at the centre of US concerns about data access, influence over public discourse, and Beijing’s reach into global tech.” The next step is Friday’s call between Trump and Xi. After years of false starts, the framework is on the table. The question is whether it becomes a binding deal that truly changes who controls TikTok in the United States.

ACZ Editor: This was a good move by Trump, it pushes China out just a little bit. Much more to go.
I only wish that Trump would recognize the same dangers in Google, Facebook and Amazon. We have long noted their abilities and willingness to influence elections and censor conservative speech.