Trump Embraces TikTok (PG). Yonhap News. 

A new joint venture, in which American investors and board members will hold a majority stake, will be responsible for the U.S. operations of Chinese video platform TikTok, a senior White House official announced on the 22nd (local time).

Speaking on a conference call that day, the official explained the key details of the TikTok agreement, stating, "President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have been negotiating another excellent deal for the American people."

The official added, "TikTok's U.S. operations will be transferred to a new joint venture based in the United States. The joint venture will have a majority of American investors and owners, and the board of directors will also be majority American."

The security operations for the new joint venture will be handled by the American software company Oracle.

The official elaborated, "Oracle will provide comprehensive security for how the TikTok app is installed on mobile phones, how it interacts with phones, how it is updated, how American data is stored, and how the content recommendation algorithm functions."

Regarding the algorithm issue, he explained, "We had to devise a compromise that satisfies the requirements of both U.S. law and Chinese domestic law, which was a very difficult point of negotiation."

He further stated, "A copy of the content recommendation algorithm will be brought to the new U.S. joint venture, where a security firm will thoroughly inspect it and retrain it based on U.S. user data."

TikTok, which is highly popular in the U.S. with over 170 million American users, has faced concerns about potential misuse for data theft or hacking by China due to its parent company, ByteDance, being Chinese.

In response, the U.S. Congress enacted the "TikTok Ban Act" last year, which would prohibit TikTok services in the U.S. unless the company sells its U.S. operations to an American company.

The Trump administration had postponed the enforcement of this law, aiming to allow Americans to continue using TikTok, and had been negotiating with China regarding the acquisition of TikTok's majority stake by a U.S. company. Recently, it was announced that both countries have reached a broad agreement.

The official stated, "President Trump is expected to sign an executive order later this week. This order will include provisions stating that the terms of this TikTok deal are consistent with national security and constitute a legally permissible divestiture of assets."

The executive order is also expected to include an extension of the current sanctions grace period to allow investors and TikTok to complete the necessary paperwork for closing the deal.

Consequently, the official projected that the TikTok-related transaction would be finalized 120 days after the executive order is signed.

The official remarked that the TikTok agreement will "save thousands of jobs and thousands of small businesses that use the TikTok app for promotion. It will generate economic activity worth hundreds of billions of dollars over the next five years."

Yonhap News