Bessent Confirms Final TikTok Deal Reached Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit

The Biden-era TikTok standoff is officially over and it took President Donald Trump to finally close the deal.

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the United States and China have reached a finalized agreement on the future of TikTok, resolving long-standing national security concerns tied to Chinese ownership of the massively popular app.

“We reached a final deal on TikTok… all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea,” Bessent said on Face the Nation, referencing the upcoming Trump-Xi summit at the APEC meeting in South Korea.

While Bessent declined to go into specifics, the move finalizes a plan first initiated under Trump’s administration and later stalled by Joe Biden for TikTok to become a fully American-operated platform, severed from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence.

After taking office, Trump delayed Biden’s April 2024 TikTok ban, which gave ByteDance the Chinese owner of TikTok an ultimatum: divest or be banned in the U.S.

In September, Trump signed a forceful executive order requiring TikTok to cut all ties with foreign adversaries. That order has now become the foundation of the final agreement.

“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump declared at the time.
“I very much appreciate that [President Xi] approved the deal… because to get it done properly, we really needed China’s support.”

According to the executive order's provisions, the finalized deal will:

• Eliminate any foreign adversary control over TikTok’s algorithm and data operations

• Prohibit operational relationships between the U.S. platform and any China-controlled entity

• Mandate storage of all U.S. user data on American servers, managed by a U.S. cloud provider

• Guarantee joint venture leadership is American-owned and American-run

Under Biden, TikTok’s Chinese ownership remained largely untouched despite bipartisan concerns. Investigations showed TikTok user data could be accessed from Beijing, raising fears of surveillance, censorship, and CCP influence over American youth.

Despite those warnings, Biden dragged his feet only signing a ban after pressure from Congress. Even then, his administration lacked the leverage to enforce divestment.

Trump, on the other hand, tied China’s cooperation on TikTok to broader economic and trade negotiations a move that finally delivered results.

“The Trump administration made TikTok’s divestment a piece of a larger deal. That’s how you negotiate,” a senior administration official said.

The finalized TikTok agreement will now be formally signed at the Trump-Xi summit this Thursday, alongside talks on tariffs, rare earths, and China’s role in addressing U.S. fentanyl imports.

This is more than just a tech deal it’s a clear national security victory and a strategic win for American sovereignty. With TikTok effectively severed from CCP control, the United States can now ensure its data and its culture are no longer manipulated by a foreign adversary.

And once again, it took Donald Trump not Biden to get it done.

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