When US President Donald Trump first brought up banning TikTok on perceived national security concerns more than five years ago, the app from Beijing-based ByteDance was the envy of the global tech industry. Its powerful algorithm had rejuvenated a tired social media landscape by keeping users engaged not just via posts from friends, but by endlessly recommending other content based on how they interacted with clips they came across.
Beijing, however, drew a red line, saying there was no way ByteDance would give up its crown jewel of the consumer tech industry. Chinese officials accused Washington of trying to plunder their private companies and even updated export laws to prohibit a sale of TikTok’s secret sauce: its algorithm.
That uncompromising stance now appears to have softened, at least on the surface. While Trump has hailed an accord that ostensibly saves TikTok’s US operations, Beijing has revealed almost nothing about what was agreed. But state-backed media has repeatedly described it as a “win-win” in read-outs. The purported deal has raised more questions than answers, but the biggest one Americans should ask is: What did Trump give up to save TikTok?
China could still pull out from a deal. Or its terms may not pass muster in Washington. Beijing has yet to publicly confirm whether it has given its approval, despite Trump signing an executive order to advance plans for American investors to buy its US operations.
But the time is ripe for China to concede TikTok. A law was passed with bipartisan support to ban the app or force a divestiture during the Biden administration and TikTok has exhausted its legal battle to remain in the US.
Over half a decade since all this began, Washington and Beijing are locked in a battle over tariffs, rare earth magnets and advanced semiconductors. The lines of code powering TikTok have become one of the biggest sticking points in stabilizing a deteriorating relationship between the two superpowers. With deflationary pressures at home and broader macroeconomic uncertainty, Beijing has bigger worries.
Trump had campaigned on saving the app and credited it with making him a “star” and reaching younger voters. TikTok doesn’t even operate in China, and it’s become very clear over the years that it means much more to Trump than it does to Xi Jinping. This has only given Beijing more leverage. Now is the time to use it.
Xinhua reports that a framework for a consensus was reached that also aims to resolve other issues like reducing investment barriers and promoting economic and trade cooperation. That suggests something was offered in exchange for allowing TikTok to stay in America.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the threat of the app going dark in the US ultimately sealed the deal. Yet, Trump has gone beyond the law to punt the deadline for TikTok’s US shutdown four times this year alone, and when the app briefly ceased operations in America this January, the president himself took credit for its return in a message to its 170 million US users. Clearly, something else was offered to prevent the platform from being turned off after he promised to save it.
As part of the deal, Beijing is sticking to its original red line. ByteDance will reportedly still own the coveted algorithm, but will license a copy of it to a US consortium to rebuild its own version “from the ground up,” as a White House official stated. It’s unclear whether this will abide by the US law to ban the app and ensure that Beijing won’t have a shred of influence.
The tech landscape has also moved on. ByteDance in the US is best known for being TikTok’s owner, but in China it has already shifted focus to becoming an AI powerhouse. Its Doubao chatbot is the most popular AI app in the country by monthly active users and its latest model is the top-ranked AI system, just behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and ahead of DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen.
While it was once the centerpiece of China’s global tech ambitions, TikTok may now be just another tradable asset in a larger strategy to secure dominance in key technologies of the future. Xi has held his ground so far by standing up to Trump and eking out an extended trade war truce. Now, something has to give. Allowing the White House to find a way to keep TikTok in the US is a strategic peace offering amid more pressing priorities.
In his 2025 book about Apple’s relationship with Beijing, tech journalist Patrick McGee writes: “In China, ‘win-win’ means China wins twice.” Trump may be taking a public victory lap for keeping a version of this popular platform in the US, but it could prove far less valuable than what Beijing quietly walks away with. ©Bloomberg
The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech.
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