Trump announces deal with China regarding TikTok ownership

On September 15th, President Donald Trump confirmed a bilateral agreement between the United States and China marking significant progress on ongoing trade negotiations and the uncertain future of TikTok operations in the United States, which earlier this year went through a brief ban across the United States.

President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump (right) during the latter's first term in office, Andy Wong/AP.

The president confirmed the deal today, stating that the two rival superpowers reached a "basic framework consensus" on the ownership of TikTok. The TikTok debacle has left the nation split and the social media platform's future uncertain as it faced scrutiny by individual states through complete bans in government facilities, and even faced a full nationwide ban earlier this year, which caused millions of Americans to be affected.

Trump argued that the deal will be for a "'certain' company that young people our Country very much wanted to be saved," with this unspecified private entity most likely being the social media platform TikTok, which Trump has advocated for its transfer of ownership to an American company in order to keep its operations domestically.

By a previous deal, TikTok will be set to go offline by September 17th unless its parent company ByteDance divests its majority stake in the company, unless Trump extends the deadline.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the deal as a "framework," and refrained from going into specifics like the president. Both individuals' respective comments reflect the use of private discourse between parties during these negotiations, which likely played a key role in the deal between the two powers.

However, the deal did not emphasize tariff policy, which remains a key talking point by investors and analysts.

John Praveen, Managing Director at Paleo Leon, responded to the news by stating, "The worst-case scenario is probably behind us. There's a little bit of face saving for both sides. From the U.S. point of view the rare earth thing was a big deal. They got an agreement. The question is whether it will be implemented. The fact they have some kind of agreement is probably at least a relief for the market... Both sides got a little bit of what they wanted. The fact that things that things are de-escalating is the important point. It's probably a relief for the markets... We'll have to wait and see if they will further scale it down. When the dust settles it will probably come down a little bit further because this level of tariff will probably cause inflationary pain for the consumer... When Trump and Xi meet they'll probably scale it down further. You need to save something for that meeting."

The presidents will discuss the details of the agreement later this week, paving the way for a formal in-person summit later this year or later next year.