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The United States and China have reportedly finalized a deal for TikTok to be sold to American owners with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jingping set to officially "consummate" it next week in South Korea, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Sunday (October 26) during an appearance on CBS News' Face the Nation Sunday (October 26).
“We reached a final deal on TikTok,” Bessent. “We reached one in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea."
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to facilitate a deal to potentially transfer ownership of the popular social media application TikTok to Americans on September 25, however, information about the reported deal was limited. Bessent declined to give additional details about the finalized deal, claiming he wasn't “part of the commercial side of the transaction.”
“My remit was to get the Chinese to agree to approve the transaction, and I believe we successfully accomplished that over the past two days,” he said during his Face the Nation appearance.
TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, will reportedly own less than 20% of the popular social media app while "certain investors" were reported to get 80% under the framework of Trump's executive order signed last month.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said at the time via NBC News. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
The structure of the reported deal would adhere to a bipartisan law passed in 2024 calling for the social media application to be banned if it wasn't sold to American owners in 2025. The app had previously shut down temporarily in January, one day prior to Trump's inauguration, and went back online after the president promised not to enforce penalties against it in the law and would seek to make a deal with China to sell the platform.
Trump had extended the deadline several times in 2025 prior to a deal on a sale being reached.