China sidesteps question on TikTok after Trump says close to deal
TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance is under pressure to spin off the short-video app's US operations by September 17 or face a ban in the United States. Last year, then President Joe Biden signed a sale-or-ban law, requiring ByteDance to divest the app to an American owner over national security concerns. Despite an original January deadline, Trump has repeatedly delayed enforcement of the law.
'China has reiterated its principle and position on issues related to TikTok on multiple occasions,' China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday in response to a request for an update on the latest TikTok talks, without providing further details.
When previously asked about the TikTok deal, the Foreign Ministry has urged the US to provide an 'open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment' for Chinese businesses, and said that acquisition of businesses should be 'independently decided by companies in accordance with market principles.'
The Chinese government has given little indication that it would approve a forced sale. In early 2023, a Commerce Ministry spokeswoman said in the government's first direct response to the matter that China would oppose any forced sale of TikTok, citing how a sale or divestiture of the app would involve 'exporting technology' and had to be approved by the Chinese government. TikTok's 'algorithm' is widely seen as the app's secret sauce behind its explosive popularity.
In the US, TikTok boasts over 170 million monthly active users, according to the company early last year. Over 60% of American teens and about a third of American adults use the social media platform, according to a Pew Research Center study, for news, entertainment, or even to earn a living.
On Friday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US 'pretty much' has a deal on the sale of the app, though he said he's 'not confident' China would approve the deal.
'I think we're going to start Monday or Tuesday…talking to China perhaps President Xi or one of his representatives, but we pretty much have a deal on TikTok,' he said, referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He added the deal would 'probably' have to be approved by China.
CNN has reached out to ByteDance and TikTok for comment.
In late June, Trump said that there was a buyer for TikTok, teasing an announcement in two weeks. 'It's a group of very wealthy people,' he said on a Fox News program then, without providing more details.
A deal that would transfer control of the app's US operations to American ownership had been on the horizon. But Trump's announcements of 'reciprocal' tariffs that brought levies on Chinese imports to the US to 54% on April 2 prompted China to pull out of the deal, CNN reported earlier.
Based on the law, ByteDance can own no more than 20% of the platform in the final deal, and the app's US operations cannot coordinate with ByteDance on the app's algorithm or data-sharing practices.
Alex Capri, a lecturer at the Business School of the National University of Singapore, told CNN that he doubts Beijing would approve the sale.
'Even if Beijing would choose to overlook the recent tariff hikes and ratcheting up of US export controls on Chip technologies, they still wouldn't grant export licenses for the algorithms,' he said.
On Sunday, American tech media The Information reported that TikTok is building a new version of its app for US users to be launched ahead of the September deadline. Users will need to download the new app to continue using its platform while the existing app will shut down by March next year, it said.
CNN's Fred He, Aleena Fayaz contributed reporting.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Top Copper Nation Chile Sweats on Details of Trump's 50% Tariff
(Bloomberg) -- Chile, by far the biggest shipper of copper into the US, is waiting for details to emerge following President's Donald Trump's bombshell comments on tariffs. Are Tourists Ruining Europe? How Locals Are Pushing Back Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways? Denver City Hall Takes a Page From NASA Philadelphia Trash Piles Up as Garbage Workers' Strike Drags On Trump sent shock-waves through the global copper industry on Tuesday by telling reporters that he would be slapping a 50% levy on copper imports — much higher than previously thought. Chile — and particularly state-owned Codelco — would be the most affected producer given the country accounts for about 500,000 metric tons of the total of 700,000 tons of refined metal that the US imports a year. Of that, Codelco alone ships about 350,000 tons. Asked about the 50% remarks, Chile's Foreign Ministry pointed out that there's still no executive order regarding a Commerce Department investigation into copper tariffs, and that Chile is yet to receive notification of any decision. Similarly, Codelco Chairman Maximo Pacheco said it's too soon to draw conclusions. Two major unknowns are whether there'll be country exemptions and whether the tariff will apply to both semi-fabricated copper products as well as refined metal, Pacheco said. The US needs that copper and Chile will continue to be ready to supply it, he said. Chilean officials participated in public consultations in the framework of the Commerce Department investigation. 'We remain in contact and engaged in discussions on this and other matters with the relevant authorities and technical teams,' Chile's Foreign Ministry said in a written response. Will Trade War Make South India the Next Manufacturing Hub? 'Telecom Is the New Tequila': Behind the Celebrity Wireless Boom SNAP Cuts in Big Tax Bill Will Hit a Lot of Trump Voters Too Pistachios Are Everywhere Right Now, Not Just in Dubai Chocolate For Brazil's Criminals, Coffee Beans Are the Target ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CNN
10 minutes ago
- CNN
Fact check: Debunking 11 of Trump's false claims at Cabinet meeting
President Donald Trump again turned a Cabinet meeting into a wide-ranging conversation with reporters – and again uttered a whole bunch of false claims in the process. Trump's Tuesday remarks at the White House included inaccurate assertions about inflation, immigration, his tariff policy, the massive domestic policy bill he signed last week, China's use of wind energy, US and European aid to Ukraine, the US relationship with South Korea, and other subjects. Here is a fact check of 11 of the president's false claims. This is not a comprehensive list. Inflation: As he has repeatedly, Trump falsely claimed Tuesday, 'We have no inflation.' The US does have inflation – an annual inflation rate of 2.4% in May, an uptick from a 2.3% annual rate in April. That April rate was the lowest since early 2021, and lower than some economists expected for April after Trump imposed significant new tariffs, but it's not 'no inflation' whatsoever. (And on a month-to-month basis, US consumer prices increased 0.1% in May and 0.2% in April.) Tax on Social Security: Touting the new domestic policy legislation, Trump repeated his false claim that it achieves his campaign promise of 'no tax on Social Security.' It does not. The legislation does create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more), but the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged that millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn't even apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65. Trump's tariff letters: Trump spoke of the letters he sent to various foreign leaders announcing the tariff rates he plans to impose on their countries beginning in August – and said, 'I just want you to know - a letter means a deal.' That's just not true. Multiple letters the White House revealed on Monday announced tariff rates Trump said he plans to unilaterally place on imports from foreign countries; those letters did not describe negotiated deals. Who pays tariffs: Trump repeatedly spoke of how his new tariffs mean other countries will have to 'pay' the US for the privilege of doing business in the US. Contrary to Trump's frequent assertions, it is the US importers who buy foreign products, not foreign countries themselves, who make the tariff payments to the US government. Tariff history: Trump repeated his regular false claim that the US was 'proportionately' at its 'wealthiest' between 1870 and 1913, when tariff revenue made up a much larger share of federal revenue before the reintroduction of the income tax. Trump didn't explain what he meant by 'proportionately' or 'the wealthiest,' but economists say that by any standard measure, the US is far wealthier today than it was in the early 20th century and prior; per capita gross domestic product is now many times higher than it was then. China and wind power: Trump, asserting that 'smart countries' don't use wind and solar energy, repeated his recent false claim that China, the world's biggest manufacturer of wind turbines, barely uses such equipment itself - wrongly saying, 'They don't have a lot of wind farms, I'll tell you; very, very few.' In reality, China is the world leader in the generation of wind power and has massive wind farms onshore and offshore; it continues to install additional wind capacity much faster than the US. California and energy: Trump, reviving a previous inaccurate complaint about California's use of renewable energy sources, falsely claimed: 'They have blackouts and brownouts every week.' The state simply does not; its power system has improved significantly since the rolling blackouts of a 2020 heat wave. Daniel Villasenor, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in a Tuesday email that Trump is again 'lying about California.' Villasenor wrote: 'The state has not experienced any rotating outages since 2020 – and in the last three years, no Flex Alert calling to conserve power has even been issued. Not only has our grid been increasingly resilient, it's also cleaner than ever – clean energy provided for 100% of demand on our grid for at least some part of the day 167 out of the first 180 days of the year.' US and European aid to Ukraine: Trump repeated his frequent false claim that the US has provided 'far more' wartime aid to Ukraine that Europe has, saying the US is 'in there for over $300 billion; Europe's in there for over $100 billion.' Those numbers are not close to accurate. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely tracks international aid to Ukraine, the US had committed about $139 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine from late January 2022, just prior to Russia's full-scale invasion, through April 2025 – well short of about $298 billion committed by European countries and the European Union. The gap was much narrower in terms of aid actually allocated through April 2025 – about $183 billion for Europe to about $134 billion for the US – but even those figures clearly disprove Trump's claim. South Korea's military cost-sharing: Trump repeated his false claim that South Korea convinced former President Joe Biden to let it stop making payments to help cover the cost of the US military presence in South Korea, saying Biden 'cut it down to nothing.' In fact, Biden's administration signed two cost-sharing agreements with South Korea, one in 2021 and one in 2024, that included South Korean spending increases – meaning South Korea agreed to pay more than it did during Trump's first term. US troops in South Korea: Trump again exaggerated the US troop presence in South Korea, falsely saying, 'You know, we have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea.' Official Defense Department data, published online, says the US had 26,206 military personnel in South Korea as of March 31, 2025, with 22,844 on active duty. Migration and mental health: Trump falsely claimed that unnamed foreign countries 'released their insane asylum – the insane asylum population into our country.' Even Trump's own presidential campaign could not produce any evidence for his frequent claims, which he has repeated for more than two years, that foreign countries deliberately emptied their mental health facilities to somehow get patients to migrate to the United States.
CNN
10 minutes ago
- CNN
Newsom blasts Trump during South Carolina tour as California governor stokes 2028 speculation
California Gov. Gavin Newsom embarked Tuesday on a two-day swing through rural South Carolina as the high-profile Democrat seeks to position himself as a leader for a party in rebuilding mode while simultaneously stoking fresh speculation about a potential 2028 presidential bid. Newsom alternated between defiance toward President Donald Trump and familiarity with voters in the early primary state during his roughly 15-minute address at a stop in Bennettsville, sharply criticizing the administration and referring to the opening of Trump's second term as 'an alarming six months.' 'It's not what happens to us, it's how we respond to it. And our opportunity presents itself anew. In 18 months, you have the power to end Donald Trump's presidency,' Newsom said, to loud applause from the full room. 'We'll have to deal with the tweets, we'll have to deal with the attacks and the bullying. But the legislative agenda is effectively over,' Newsom continued. 'You have that power in these midterms.' Throughout his remarks, Newsom touted his own efforts to stand up to the Trump administration and help rebuild the Democratic Party. He made repeated references to his efforts to support the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024 and promoted California as 'the most un-Trump state,' while also slipping in the occasional 'y'all' in a nod to the South. He commented on several recent news developments, including the Trump administration's latest immigration crackdown in his state and the tragic flooding last week in Texas, taking both opportunities to lambaste the president's leadership. 'Donald Trump,' Newsom said of the immigration raids in Los Angeles, 'decided to send hundreds and hundreds of military troops into the park, into the playground, in the middle of the day, where kids this old were at summer camp.' Newsom went on, 'Not one arrest was made. But what he was doing – he wanted to make a point. Cruelty is the point. Cruelty is the point.' And commenting on Texas, Newsom continued criticizing Trump's leadership. 'Do you remember his response to the disaster in California? He blamed every single person – not a peep of blame in Texas,' Newsom remarked, referencing his clashes with the administration during severe wildfires that devastated Los Angeles earlier this year. Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump didn't mention Newsom by name but called him 'one of the worst governors in our country, who I used to get along with, actually.' Trump also defended the federal response to the wildfires. 'If we didn't step in, Los Angeles would have been burned to the ground,' he said. At one point, while invoking his support for former President Joe Biden, Newsom noted that included the 'not so easy' role of being a surrogate on the night of the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in June 2024. 'I say this with love in my heart – with love in my heart – but love for my party and love for my country.' Newsom also touted his recent defamation lawsuit against Fox News, drawing applause from the audience. 'Lies. Myths. And misrepresentations. You think I'm lying? Take a look at what I did last week – I sued Fox News,' he remarked. The California governor's visit to the key presidential primary state is the latest in a series of moves laying the groundwork for a potential 2028 campaign, with several high-profile contenders already making visits to longtime early primary states. Attendees at Newsom's midday event in Marlboro County underscored the anticipation. 'I came to see the next president of the United States, who should really be the current president, if we are being honest,' said Samantha Sherman, who drove from her home near the state line with her 10-year-old son Patrick to see Newsom. Ken Stroman, a Bennettsville native, told CNN he didn't know much about Newsom coming into Tuesday's visit. 'I knew people described him as a potential front-runner. Now I see why,' said Stroman. 'I don't know if he will be the nominee, but if he is, I could support him.' 'The way Trump has treated California, we get that. Poor Black people in the South, that is how we are treated. He sees that.' Trump improved his performance in Marlboro County in each of his three campaigns. In 2016, he lost it to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 16 points. Four years later he cut his deficit to less than 11 points against Biden. Last November, he lost it by less than 3 points against former Vice President Kamala Harris. South Carolina Republicans responded to Newsom's trip on social media by mocking him and the state of California. 'Gavin Newsom in South Carolina today is like a kale salad at a Waffle House — confused, unwelcome, and about to get sent back,' said Republican Rep. Russell Fry on X.
