Ben Pawlowski
SPAIN cemented its position at the heart of international affairs earlier this week as its capital city played host to crunch talks between China and the United States over an ongoing trade war.
Trade envoys from the two superpowers descended on Madrid over the weekend in an attempt to thrash out a deal over a range of issues, including the future of the immensely popular Chinese-run social media app TikTok.
Talks between delegations headed by US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng took place over the course of six hours at the Palacio de Santa Cruz, a baroque building in the heart of the capital currently housing Spain’s Foreign Ministry.
While discussions also focused on the strained trade ties between the two nations following President Trump’s self-proclaimed ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, the major breakthrough appeared to be a framework agreement to switch the short-form video app to US-controlled ownership, pending a Friday call between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Bessent said the potential deal, which will have to jump through several hoops including the anti-Chinese Republican-controlled Congress, would address US security concerns over the app, which counts an estimated 170 million American users.
Some fear that TikTok’s US user data could be accessed by the Chinese government, allowing Beijing to spy on Americans or conduct influence operations through the app.
The same logic has dictated the US approach towards Huawei, the technology company whose deals to provide fibre-optic services to Western countries, including Spain, have proven politically toxic.
Trump had handed Beijing-based ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, a Wednesday deadline to find a new buyer for the site’s US operations or face being banned from the country – although the deadline has already been extended several times.
One reason for the delay may be TikTok’s newfound role in domestic politics, with Trump crediting the site with helping him to win re-election over Joe Biden last year.
His personal account on the app has over 15 million followers.
“A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform after talks had concluded.
Speaking in Madrid on Monday, Bessent told reporters that any American ownership of TikTok would preserve cultural aspects of the app that Chinese negotiators care about, viewing the video platform as a key soft power export.
“They’re interested in Chinese characteristics of the app, which they think are soft power. We don’t care about Chinese characteristics. We care about national security,” Bessent said.
China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, said the two sides had reached a ‘basic framework consensus’ over the future of TikTok, but accused the US of ‘unilateral bullying’ by blocking Chinese shipments of technology such as semiconductors over national security concerns.
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