Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump has made a mockery of the bill passed by Congress requiring TikTok to be sold to non-Chinese interests. He has refused to enforce the terms of the bill, which called for a shutdown of the service if it was not sold within the required timeframe. He also granted three extensions to himself/TikTok when the legislation only allowed for one.
The basic dynamics in play really could not be clearer. Last year, Trump was very anti-TikTok because he was very anti-China. However, the content on that platform then took a very pro-Trump turn. That development is surely not a coincidence given the Chinese government's interests here, and its ability to influence the site's algorithm. Thanks to the newfound Trumpiness, and the fact that Trump did not want the blowback of being "the guy who killed TikTok," he was clearly never going to swing the axe. You might say that the President TikTACOed out.
Yesterday, the White House announced that our long national nightmare is over, and that the TikTok situation has been resolved. Predictably, when the White House said "this has been resolved," what it meant was "well, it hasn't actually been resolved quite yet." In fact, and again predictably, what the White House has negotiated is a "framework" for a deal. A spokesperson said that Trump (a.k.a. the Dealmaker-in-Chief) will hammer out the final details when he meets with Chinese president Xi Jinping later this week.
One would think that this should be a relatively simple matter, and would not require "frameworks" and other such half-measures. Similarly, one would think that if the deal is that close to the finish line, the White House could give some general sense of what the nature of the deal is. The administration has not done that; the details of the framework (assuming it even exists) are entirely unknown.
If a deal is actually reached (certainly no sure thing), we think it very unlikely that it will comport with the intent of Congress as expressed in the legislation that it passed. First, if TikTok was really going to be sold to non-Chinese interests, why not mention that when announcing the "framework"? Second, and more importantly, Xi wants to retain some control over the platform, AND he's a better negotiator than Trump, AND he knows Trump isn't actually willing to go nuclear and shut the platform down. In other words, the Chinese leader basically has all the cards. We suspect that the final "deal" is going to faintly look like divestment, but won't be actual divestment. The other possible outcome is that Trump gets angry when Xi won't yield, pitches a fit, refuses to discuss the matter any further, and returns home to fire off a dozen messages on his made-in-China social media platform. Recall what happened when Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, for example.
It is at least conceivable that Larry Ellison, who is currently the world's richest man, buys TikTok. After all, Elon Musk bought Twitter back when he was the world's richest man. Ellison is also a strong Trump supporter. It is at least possible. (Z)