Heavy snow and difficult travel expected again, heaviest snow in southern Minnesota

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

A framework deal has been reached between China and the U.S. for the ownership of popular 

, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after 

Bessent said in a press conference after 

 between the world's top two economies concluded in Madrid that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping would speak Friday to 

. He said the objective of the deal would be to switch to U.S. ownership.

“We are not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal,” Bessent said. “It’s between two private parties. But the commercial terms have been agreed upon.”

Li Chenggang, China's international trade representative, said the two sides have reached “basic framework consensus” to properly solve 

 in a cooperative way, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade cooperation, according to China's official news agency Xinhua.

Li said the two sides had “candid, in-depth" discussions over TikTok and matters of concern to China.

 between U.S. and Chinese officials since Trump 

 on Chinese goods in April. A fifth round of negotiations is likely to happen “in the coming weeks,” Bessent said, with both governments planning for a possible summit between Trump and Xi later this year or early next year to 

However, nothing has been confirmed, and analysts say 

Chinese officials didn't immediately speak to the media following the Madrid talks, but Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, who led the Chinese delegation, was seen smiling when he left the venue.

During Joe Biden’s Democratic presidency, Congress and the White House used national security grounds to approve 

 unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake.

 for shutting down TikTok, even though the law allows for just one 90-day reprieve, and only if there’s a deal on the table and a formal notification to Congress.

The current extension expires Wednesday, two days before Trump and Xi are scheduled to discuss the final details of the framework deal. Although Trump hasn't addressed the forthcoming deadline directly, he has claimed that he can 

TikTok is one of more than 100 apps developed in the past decade by ByteDance, a technology firm 

 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming and headquartered in Beijing’s northwestern Haidian district.

In 2016, ByteDance 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 U.S. and Europe, and combined it with TikTok while keeping the app separate from Douyin.

Soon after, the app boomed in popularity in the U.S. and many other countries, becoming the first Chinese platform to make serious inroads in the West. Unlike other social media platforms that focused on cultivating connections among users, TikTok tailored content to people’s interests.

 content 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 the careers of music artists like Lil Nas X.

TikTok gained more traction during the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, when short dances that went viral became a mainstay of the app. To better compete, 

 eventually came out with their own tools for making short-form videos, respectively known as Reels and Shorts. By that point, TikTok was a bona fide hit.

 in tandem with TikTok’s success. U.S. officials expressed 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. Another concern became the proprietary algorithm that populates what users see on the app.

Business and Economic News

Media

Politics and Government News

Homepage

The Associated Press

Author

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday after trade talks in Madrid that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping would speak Friday to possibly finalize the deal.

The TikTok app in front of an American flag.

A framework deal on TikTok has been reached between the U.S. and China

Go Deeper.

Like this?