OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:59 PM – Monday, September 15, 2025
The Trump administration announced that the United States and China have reached a preliminary framework agreement regarding TikTok’s ownership.
The deal aims to transition TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to U.S.-controlled ownership, addressing national security concerns related to user data access by the Chinese government.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the development following trade talks in Madrid, and the framework deal was made prior to the September 17th deadline. If the deadline had not been reached, it would have forced ByteDance to divest TikTok in the U.S. or face a potential shutdown.
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President Donald Trump teased the announcement in a Monday Truth Social post, writing: “The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL! It will be concluding shortly. 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. The relationship remains a very strong one!!!”
Bessent also noted on Monday that “it’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon.” While specific commercial terms have not been publicly disclosed, Bessent mentioned that the deal could result in the platform seeing a shift to U.S.-based ownership.
President Trump will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday to officially “complete” the deal, he added.
The imminent shutdown stems from a law passed last year banning major app store operators, such as Apple and Google, from carrying TikTok in the United States in response to its “foreign adversary-controlled” status — as ByteDance is a Chinese-based company.
U.S. officials have long raised concerns over Beijing having access to data from American citizens via their TikTok accounts, with worries that the app could be pushing propaganda to advance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The application was previously scheduled to shut down in January before President Trump authorized multiple temporary extensions, giving ByteDance additional time to negotiate.
Meanwhile, China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, also confirmed that the two nations have agreed to a “basic framework consensus” on a deal while highlighting that China “will never seek to reach any agreement at the expense of its principled stance, corporate interests, and international fairness and justice.”
President Trump previously revealed that he would be open to Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison purchasing the platform, although the details of the current framework remain unclear.
If the deal is finalized, the TikTok saga will finally conclude, ending years of uncertainty in the United States over concerns that Beijing could influence content or access sensitive data from millions of Americans.
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