Tariffs for TikTok
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Trump on Wednesday raised the possibility that he could relax steep upcoming tariffs on China in exchange for the country’s support on a deal to sell TikTok to a new owner supported by the United States.
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The art of the deal. Nice going, Donny.
After months of negotiations, a deal to turn over TikTok’s United States operations to a new company with a majority American ownership was finalized on Wednesday, according to senior administration officials.
The investors -- which included Oracle, Blackstone, Andreeson Horowitz and several others -- ByteDance and the Trump administration negotiated and agreed to the terms.
The plan was for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to approve the deal this week, triggering a 120-day closing period to finalize the paperwork and financing.
ByteDance would have maintained a minority ownership in the new company, under the 20% threshold required by Congress.
All that remained was for the Chinese government to approve the deal — something all sides of the negotiations expected would happen.
However, on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced his tariffs.
Thursday morning, representatives for ByteDance called the White House to say the Chinese government would not approve the deal until negotiations could be held on Trump’s tariffs.
The deal remains in limbo, hostage to the emerging trade war between the U.S. and China.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Tiktok-deal-us-china-trade-war/story?id=120494441
