US Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, announced as part of the economic and trade negotiations in Madrid on Monday, an agreement has been reached between the United States and China regarding the short-video application TikTok.
This agreement will allow TikTok to continue its operations in the United States.
Following the two-day negotiations in Madrid, Bessent told reporters, “We have indeed reached a framework agreement on TikTok. I believe this framework entails the ownership of TikTok being transferred to American control.” However, he did not provide further details.
US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, who participated in the negotiations, stated that the September 17 deadline facing TikTok in the US may be temporarily extended to allow both the US and China more time to finalize the details of the framework agreement.
The September 17 deadline refers to the full ban TikTok would face in the US if the Chinese parent company, ByteDance, does not divest from TikTok’s US operations before the specified date.
“If there’s no framework agreement, it (TikTok’s deadline) will not be extended,” Bessent said.
He also mentioned that President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are scheduled to have a call on Friday “to finalize this agreement.”
“We will not discuss the business terms of the agreement; that’s between two private entities. However, the business terms have been agreed upon,” Bessent noted.
“We had very productive discussions. We (this round of talks) tended to focus on TikTok,” Bessent explained. “In about a month, we will meet at another location for trade negotiations. However, we did discuss many things that could be done in the future.”
He stated that both sides also discussed ways to cooperate in combating money laundering and curbing illicit fentanyl trade.
US Trade Representative Greer informed reporters that the discussions primarily focused on TikTok, ensuring an agreement that is fair to the Chinese side while fully respecting US national security concerns. “That is the agreement we have reached. Of course, we want to ensure that China has a fair investment environment in the US, but US national security always comes first.”
According to Reuters, a senior US official familiar with the negotiation situation warned before the US-China talks on Monday that unless China abandons its demand for the US to lower tariffs on Chinese goods or relax technology export restrictions in the TikTok asset sale negotiations, the US will continue to push for the ban on TikTok.