Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump formally extended the deadline to keep the social-media app TikTok available in the United States until Dec. 16, giving time to complete the framework of the deal announced Monday after talks between American and Chinese government officials.
The executive order signed on Tuesday by Mr. Trump was the fourth time he has bypassed federal law to prolong the deadline for the China-associated TikTok to sell its assets to an American company or face a ban. The original deadline was Jan. 19 of this year, a day before Mr. Trump took the oath of office for his second term.
Mr. Trump was asked Tuesday about the framework deal he announced a day earlier and repeated that he would discuss TikTok with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday. He has said there are companies that want to buy the social-media app owned by ByteDance and that details about its potential suitors would be announced soon.
“I hate to see value like that thrown out the window,” Mr. Trump said as he departed the White House, with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, for a state visit to the United Kingdom.
Foreign TikTok influencers shaped Canadian news feeds during spring election, report says
The framework came out of a meeting in Madrid that concluded Monday between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng, among other officials.
Mr. Bessent told reporters that the goal was to switch TikTok’s assets to U.S. ownership for its operations in America, though he declined to discuss the details of the framework.
Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative, told reporters the sides have reached “basic framework consensus” to co-operatively resolve TikTok-related issues, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade co-operation.
Three sources familiar with the new terms told Reuters on Tuesday that the agreement is similar to a deal worked out earlier this year.
A deal for TikTok had been in the works in the spring, but was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it after Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods. The deal in April would have spun off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new company based in the U.S. and majority-owned and operated by U.S. investors.
The basics of the new deal, also similar to April, include that ByteDance will keep the single largest ownership stake at 19.9 per cent, just under the law’s 20 per cent threshold, two of the sources said.
TikTok U.S. would also likely still be able to access ByteDance’s algorithm under the new deal, two of the sources said, as China said this week it would review that kind of technology export and the licensing of intellectual property rights in accordance with the law.
While the broad terms are expected to remain, the sources did say they do not know what the exact details of any final deal will look like, given the potential for last-minute changes.
A senior White House official said in a statement to Reuters that details on the framework are “speculation unless they are announced by this administration.”
With a report from Reuters