Then it fell apart.
Last Wednesday, Trump slapped 34 percent tariffs on China. On Thursday, ByteDance representatives told the White House Beijing would no longer approve the deal, the people said. And on Friday, Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline by 75 days.
Now, as the world’s two largest economies retaliate against each other with increasingly crippling tariffs, the TikTok deal is completely on pause, according to another person close to Vice President JD Vance, whose team was leading the negotiations. It’s a “waiting game,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Beijing is “really, really good at identifying things that don’t cause them pain, but do cause you pain. And this is a classic case because I think they would prefer not to sell TikTok anyway,” said Bill Reinsch, a top Commerce official during the Clinton administration who is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This is a convenient way for them to both send the signal to us that they are not without leverage and to maintain control of TikTok for themselves.”
Beijing’s strategy is flipping Trump’s own playbook on its head.
www.nytimes.com