MADRID — A framework deal has been reached between China and the U.S. for the ownership of popular social video platform TikTok, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after weekend trade talks in Spain.
Bessent said in a news conference after the latest round of trade talks between the world’s two largest economies concluded in Madrid that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping would speak Friday to possibly finalize the deal. He said the objective was to switch to U.S. ownership from China’s ByteDance.
“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, told reporters the sides have reached “basic framework consensus” to resolve TikTok-related issues in a cooperative way, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade cooperation.
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The talks lasted more than six hours Sunday and about five hours Monday. The Treasury secretary said that he spoke to Trump on Sunday night to seek guidance on how to proceed with a TikTok deal.
Bessent plans to join Trump for a state visit in London on Wednesday.
Both sides came to Madrid to finalize the technical details of a TikTok deal, but demands from the Chinese on trade and other national security issues threaten to derail talks, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. China wants to tie trade demands to a TikTok deal, but the U.S. wants to keep both topics separate, the person added.
The meeting in Madrid is the fourth round of trade talks between U.S. and Chinese officials since Trump launched a tariff war 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 solidify a trade agreement.
However, nothing has been confirmed, and analysts say possible trade bumps could delay the visit.
Top diplomats and defense chiefs from each side spoke last week, smoothing the path for their leaders’ first sit-down since Trump returned to office.
The world’s biggest economies still haven’t reached a trade deal with a 90-day pause on tariffs as high as 145% holding the peace until mid-November. Beijing has shown leverage over the U.S. with its hold over rare earth magnets critical to American manufacturing. But it remains unclear whether Trump would be open to a deal involving Chinese investment, as has been the case with Japan and South Korea.
In Madrid, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the team was “very focused on TikTok and making sure that it was a deal that is fair for the Chinese” but also “completely respects U.S. national security concerns.”
Wang Jingtao, deputy director of China’s Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, told reporters in Madrid there was consensus on authorization of “the use of intellectual property rights such as (TikTok’s) algorithm” — a main sticking point in the deal.
The sides also agreed on entrusting a partner with handling U.S. user data and content security, he said.
During Joe Biden’s Democratic presidency, Congress and the White House used national security grounds to approve a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its Chinese parent company sold its controlling stake.
U.S. officials were concerned about ByteDance’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.
Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly extended the deadline for shutting down TikTok. 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 delay the ban indefinitely. Reuters earlier reported that the Trump administration is expected to again extend the deadline for TikTok divestiture. However, Trump still told reporters Sunday his administration was prepared to “let it die.”
Trump granted the latest reprieve even though the 2024 national security law allows for only one 90-day extension of the deadline.
Wendy Cutler, senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said it appears that “both sides have found a way forward to transfer ownership to a U.S. company.”
“If accurate, this would represent an important step forward in resolving a lingering bilateral dispute,” she said.
“This is more like a war of words,” according to George Chen, partner and co-chair of digital practice at The Asia Group, which was co-founded by former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, adding the situation was still manageable. “If both sides come out of the Madrid talks without any indication of progress or what to do next, then I will be worried.”
‘Candid’ communications
Other long-running issues like export controls, Chinese investments in the U.S. and restrictions on chemicals used to make fentanyl also came up. Bessent indicated that money laundering, related to drug trafficking, “was an area of extreme agreement.”
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, who led the Chinese delegation, said the sides held “candid, in-depth and constructive” communications, according to China’s official news agency Xinhua.
But Li, China’s international trade representative, said Beijing opposes the “politicization” and “weaponization” of technology, trade and economic issues, adding that China would “never seek any agreement at the expense of principle, the interests of the companies, and international fairness and justice.”
He criticized the U.S. for overstretching the concept of national security and imposing sanctions on more Chinese companies. Calling it “a typical, unilateral, bullying practice,” Li said China demanded restrictive measures be removed.
“The U.S. side should not on one hand ask China to accommodate its concerns, whilst at the same time continue to suppress Chinese companies,” Li said.
As the weekend talks were underway, Trump said the war in Ukraine would end if all NATO countries stopped buying Russian oil and placed tariffs on China of 50% to 100% for doing so. The Chinese Commerce Ministry on Monday called the demand “a classic example of unilateral bullying and economic coercion.”
China’s foreign ministry on Monday did not say if Beijing has invited Trump for a state visit.
Analysts have suggested that the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries in South Korea at the end of October could provide an opportunity.
The plan for another round of trade talks is “encouraging but seems to be cutting things close,” Cutler said, adding that more work is needed at lower levels for a Trump-Xi meeting to take place and that there are other opportunities for them to meet next year.
For now, “there is little time to hammer out a meaningful trade agreement,” she said. “What we are more likely to see is a series of ad-hoc deliverables, possibly a Chinese commitment to buy more U.S. soybeans and other products, a U.S. agreement to hold back on announcing certain further U.S. high-tech export controls, and another 90-day rollover of the tariff pause.”
The latest round of talks took place shortly after Xi gathered leaders of more than 20 countries in China last month in a show of Beijing’s efforts to reshape a global order without the United States at the center. Trump’s hardball tactics in trade negotiations have created a rift with allies like India, which has been the target of Trump’s heavy import tariffs, creating an opportunity for China to push for a closer relationship.
China is relying on increased trade with other countries to offset a sharp decline in exports to the United States, which have dropped about 15% this year. But China’s trade to Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions is booming, and it is on pace to surpass last year’s record nearly $1 trillion trade surplus in 2025.
Despite the robust trade figures, there are signs that China’s domestic economy is feeling the pinch from the trade war. Data releases Monday showed that retail sales and industrial output in the country slowed in August, both hitting their lowest growth rates so far this year.
The Chinese government is discouraging companies from further investments in industries already suffering from overcapacity, like electric vehicles, to prevent cutthroat price competition and ease concerns from trading partners that the deluge of inexpensive Chinese-made exports will decimate local manufacturing.
Information for this article was contributed by Josh Boak, Suman Naishadham, Didi Tang and Mark Sherman of The Associated Press, Daniel Flatley, Olivia Tam, Daniel Basteiro, Colum Murphy and Josh Xiao of Bloomberg (WPNS) and by Alan Rappeport and José Bautista of The New York Times.