Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that Donald Trump made it clear he was ready to shut down TikTok completely in the U.S., and that decision forced China to make concessions.
“President Trump made it clear that he would have been willing to let TikTok go dark, that we were not going to give up national security in favor of the deal,” Scott said in an interview on Squawk Box.
The statement came just days before a critical September 17 deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations, or get banned.
The deal in question is part of a broader negotiation between the U.S. and China, with both sides trying to find a middle ground on data access, control, and ownership.
ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company, is under pressure to hand over control of the U.S. side of the platform to avoid a full ban. The White House, under Trump’s second term, is now holding firm: no more delays, no more vague promises.
Trump and Xi to talk Friday as final details get locked in
Scott confirmed from U.S.-China trade talks in Madrid that the two countries have reached a “framework” agreement for TikTok. “It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” he said.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to speak on Friday to go over the final terms. Trump posted on Truth Social that the agreement involves “a certain company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.”
The app has millions of users in the U.S., but that didn’t stop Congress from banning it from app stores last year, labeling it a “foreign adversary-controlled application.”
Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters Monday that the September 17 deadline might need to be pushed slightly to wrap up the paperwork, but warned that “there won’t be ongoing extensions.”
The U.S. has already granted ByteDance more time, an executive order signed by Trump in January gave them 75 extra days. He extended it again in April and once more in June, but that’s it.
Beijing pushes back as U.S. buyers circle TikTok
Li Chenggang, China’s lead trade negotiator, said the deal is real but warned Washington not to keep targeting Chinese companies. “The U.S. should not continue to suppress Chinese companies,” Li said during the Madrid talks, reported by Reuters.
But Scott made it clear: the U.S. wants full control over the American side of TikTok, or the app goes dark. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick backed that up in July, saying the app would be shut down entirely for U.S. users if China didn’t agree to U.S. autonomy over the platform.
The pressure is mounting fast, and ownership is the final roadblock.
Trump told Fox News in June that he had “very wealthy people” lined up to buy TikTok and said he’d announce who they were in two weeks, but never did. He had already floated names like Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Two other bidders are also in the mix: AI firm Perplexity and Project Liberty, an advocacy group led by billionaire Frank McCourt.
Despite Trump calling TikTok a national security threat during an interview with CNBC last year, the White House launched its own TikTok account in August. The decision confused critics, but Trump hasn’t backed off. ByteDance needs to sell or shut down. Period.
With the clock ticking toward September 17, the outcome depends on how hard China wants to fight to keep hold of the U.S. platform.
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