US TikTok deal: Is time ticking away to China’s benefit?
Summary
- The Trump regime complicated matters by turning TikTok into a bargaining chip in a larger trade game. With America’s sale-or-ban deadline extension, it’s unclear if the policy’s aim will be served at all. Could China end up gaining?
The White House’s TikTok deal has devolved into quite a spectacle. As the 5 April deadline [now extended by another 75 days] approached for the app to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a US ban, we still didn’t have an answer on how it might do this. A flurry of last-minute interest emerged, with players from Amazon to Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone reportedly tossing their hats in the increasingly crowded ring of potential buyers.
Some of the latest reports suggest that investors could arrange a deal that keeps ownership of the app’s powerful recommendation algorithm in the hands of Beijing-based ByteDance. If that’s the case, it’s not clear how that would assuage one of the central concerns that spurred the ban law in the first place: That the recommendation engine could be exploited to influence the content served to TikTok’s 170 million American users.
Also Read: The battle for TikTok is a fight for control of public opinion, not national security
This arrangement may appeal to Beijing, which tweaked its export rules to include algorithms when talks of a ban first arose. But it won’t quell the fears of China hawks in President Donald Trump’s own cabinet.
It’s notable that the 5 April deadline came soon after Trump unleashed a round of punishing tariffs on China as part of his ‘Liberation Day’ blitz. Yet, just earlier, the US president said that he would consider giving China “a little reduction in tariffs" to secure a TikTok deal. Trump had also [hinted of extending the deadline, which he eventually did], even if such an extension represents an extraordinary overreach of executive power, going above US Congress and its judiciary.
While there has been a lot of chatter from the US side in recent weeks, there’s been radio silence from Beijing and ByteDance. As I have written before, Trump’s determination to save TikTok, rather than let this play out in the courts or the private sector, is only yielding more power to America’s geopolitical nemesis. And by admitting that lowering tariffs “sounds like something I would do" to secure a TikTok deal, Trump ceded the next move to Beijing.
Also Read: Mint Quick Edit | Big-power war flares: What’s next?
But China’s President Xi Jinping likely won’t see a moderate concession on tariffs as a win. TikTok doesn’t even operate in China, so Xi isn’t under any pressure to please US users. And state-backed media have been clear that China views this as a precedent-setting saga that could leave other companies open to US “plunder."
Earlier, the key question was: What will it take for Beijing to let TikTok go? Now, we also need to worry about what it will take for Trump to let it go. And by obfuscating the national security concerns around TikTok to advance his tariff agenda, he has delegitimized them.
While all the last-minute buyer drama spurred intrigue, it’s worth asking if any of this will fulfil the goal of keeping American social-media users safe. A scenario where ByteDance maintains control over the algorithm may ease some data collection and spying concerns, but seems to bring us back to where we started over fears of algorithm infiltration. Pushing the deadline further doesn’t address those issues either.
Also Read: President Trump’s first big test: America’s TikTok ban
While ByteDance has been mum on the TikTok drama, its Chinese sister app, Douyin, has been in the news at home after local regulators forced the company to offer the public much more clarity on how the app recommends and moderates content. On a recently launched website, Douyin says that it does not spy on users and offered more transparency into how its algorithm tracks behaviour to serve content. It’s not just Douyin being forced to shed light, but competitors as well.
When it comes to social media, Beijing’s heavy hand is self-serving and could be stifling for users and companies, but it has been effective in tackling universal issues like youth digital safety.
Washington, meanwhile, has had a whack-a-mole approach—despite plenty of scandals over Big Tech’s risks—that seems toothless. Perhaps it’s time to try a more comprehensive method. Rather than a years-long attack on a single platform, demanding algorithmic transparency from tech firms would give American policymakers a closer look under the hood and help it address broader concerns around social media harms.
Also Read: What TikTok failed to understand about America: Democracy
It was remarkable to see lawmakers rally around the TikTok law last year, given how they have dragged their feet for decades on any rules to keep social media users safe online.
As it stands now, Trump has shown that the law can be punted on a whim and then turned into a negotiating chip for his chaotic tariff ambitions—while handing the final decision on the fate of an app beloved by nearly half the American population over to Beijing. ©Bloomberg
The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech.
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