Trump put his best brains, vice president JD Vance, in charge of negotiations, insisting TikTok owner ByteDance would be forced to sell to US buyers while handing over control of its prized recommendation algorithm.
Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has admitted that if Beijing and ByteDance won’t agree, the administration is ready to shut TikTok down entirely.
He said: “China can have a little piece or ByteDance can keep a little piece. But basically, Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm.”
The algorithm is the key and it is what makes TikTok so addictive, and Beijing has no intention of letting it fall into US hands. China classifies it as sensitive tech under export restrictions, meaning any sale needs government approval. So far, that approval isn’t coming.
ByteDance has argued there’s no need for a forced sale. Board member Bill Ford told the World Economic Forum that TikTok could comply with US law through local oversight, without selling off its core intellectual property.
Trump has admitted he isn’t “confident” that Beijing will sign off on his deal. Analysts say China is deliberately holding TikTok as leverage in wider trade talks, using it as a bargaining chip to squeeze concessions on tariffs. With Trump’s new trade war bogged down, Beijing sees little reason to give ground for free.
A 90-day truce between the US and China expires in August, just weeks before Trump’s mid-September deadline to force a sale. If nothing changes, TikTok users could be left with a crippled “US-only” version of the app or no TikTok at all.
Trump campaigned on saving TikTok but now faces the reality that his hardline approach has left him boxed in. Beijing won’t blink, ByteDance won’t give up its prized algorithm, and the White House is running out of time.
Another issue is that the US "TikTok" generation might not be forgiving if their favourite social media is switched off for reasons that it will not understand and are likely to blame the bloke whose watch it happened on.
