US China dispute over TikTok. Picture: supplied
The United States has announced a “framework” deal with China to resolve their dispute over TikTok that calls for the Chinese-owned app to pass to US control severing connections with its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
Officials from both countries made the announcement on Monday.
Agreement
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the agreement after a second day of talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid, which also includes discussions about the wider US-China trade dispute.
Bessent said the threat of allowing the social media app TikTok to go dark in the US was what ultimately sealed a framework deal
“It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” he said.
Bessent declined to give further details, saying US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will speak on Friday to “complete” the agreement.
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Trump happy
Trump applauded the deal, which will be confirmed when he discusses it with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Friday.
“A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our country very much wanted to save,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday.
“The relationship remains a very strong one!!!”
The White House declined to outline the terms of the deal, which was negotiated during trade talks between the two countries in Madrid. The two-day meeting, which wrapped up on Monday, was the latest in a slew of negotiations that began in May, according to Al Jazeera.
TikTok
The hugely popular video-sharing app, which has more than 170 million American users, was under threat from a US law that passed overwhelmingly last year and ordered TikTok to split from its Chinese owner ByteDance or get shut down in the US.
The Chinese-owned social media app was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores on 18 January after the platform’s leadership temporarily halted service in the US, to the dismay of millions of users.
This was in response to a national security law that went into effect the next day.
However, Trump quickly announced a 75-day delay on his first day in office and TikTok subsequently restored service to existing users, returning to the Apple and Google app stores in February
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