Will TikTok go dark Wednesday? Trump claims deal with China avoids shutdown.

Once again, the Trump administration is hyping a deal that could see TikTok finally sold to US owners to avoid a nationwide ban that Congress successfully argued was otherwise necessary to protect national security. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that the US and China had ironed out a “framework” for the deal, but ultimately, Donald Trump will be responsible for closing the deal on a call this Friday with China’s president, Xi Jinping, CNBC reported. Critically, Bessent said that the framework pointed to a “switch to US-controlled ownership,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. Presumably, TikTok won’t shut down ahead of Trump’s call with Xi, but TikTok risked going dark as soon as Wednesday. That’s the latest deadline for the forced sale after Trump extended the deadline three times as negotiations with China remained tense. For China, approving the TikTok sale appeared to be a key bargaining chip in trade talks with Trump, with China seemingly in no rush to grant approval. Rather than warming to the idea, ahead of talks in Madrid on Monday, Bessent had suggested that China had made a “very aggressive ask,” pushing the US to make “concessions on trade and technology in exchange for agreeing to divest from the popular social media app,” Reuters reported. China’s long-held hard stance is why some experts told Reuters the chances of a deal being reached this week were low, as Bessent insisted that the US was “not willing to sacrifice national security for a social media app.” As China likely continues to seek meaningful concessions—seemingly unwilling to put Xi on the phone with Trump until the Chinese president knows what to expect from the call—it seems clear that the sale is not yet a done deal.