“I believe all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday.”
Speaking on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Bessent said the two leaders will meet in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday to “consummate” the deal, which will be their first in-person meeting since 2019.
“We reached a final deal on TikTok,” Bessent said. “I believe all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday.”
The agreement comes after an executive order Trump signed last month requiring TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest its US operations. Bessent didn’t provide new specifics but said his role was to ensure China signed off. “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.
ByteDance will retain less than 20 percent of TikTok, while “certain investors” will control the remaining 80 percent—a setup meant to comply with legislation passed under the Biden administration that banned Chinese ownership of the app over national security concerns.
Trump had delayed the divestment deadline several times as talks continued. Without an agreement, TikTok risked being banned from major US app stores.
Trump has previously said that Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, and News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch would have roles in the new ownership structure.
Bessent also touched on progress on progress between Washington and Beijing. He said Trump is expected to withdraw the 155 percent tariff he threatened last week over China’s plans to tighten rare earth exports. “I believe that that is effectively off the table,” Bessent said. The US currently maintains about a 55 percent tariff rate on most Chinese imports.
“So I would expect that the threat of the 100 percent has gone away,” he added, suggesting that both sides reached a cooling point in the trade standoff.
“Soybean farmers are going to be extremely happy with this deal for this year and for the coming years,” he said, though he didn’t give details.
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