Trump set to approve TikTok deal meeting US legal demands

Washington (Web Desk): US President Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order later this week confirming that the planned transfer of TikTok’s American operations away from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fulfills the standards laid out in a law enacted in 2024, a White House official said on Monday.

The official noted that Washington believes Beijing has already given its approval to the agreement and that no further negotiations with China are anticipated, though both sides still need to complete remaining documentation before the deal can be sealed.

The step comes as Trump works to prevent TikTok, which has about 170 million users in the United States (US), from being banned after Congress mandated its closure by January 2025 unless ByteDance relinquished control of its US assets.

The president has temporarily postponed enforcement of the measure until mid-December, allowing time to separate TikTok’s American business from its global structure, bring in US-based investors, and ensure the arrangement qualifies as a full divestiture under the law.

Progress made last week on the deal was described as a rare sign of movement in the prolonged discussions between the United States and China, which have been overshadowed by a larger trade dispute that has unsettled markets worldwide.