President Donald Trump created a fresh round of confusion on Capitol Hill this week with his latest scheme to force China into a TikTok deal.
With two major deadlines looming — Wednesday for a major tariff announcement, and Saturday for a deal to get TikTok’s Chinese owners to divest — Trump suggested on Air Force One last week that he might try to fuse the two issues together, goading China into selling the app by offering some sort of relief for his planned sweeping tariffs.
That didn’t go over well with many members of Congress, already smarting from Trump’s decision to ignore the law they passed last year.
“The president is floating ridiculous proposals tying tariffs and TikTok together,” said a spokesperson for Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who led a charge pressing the administration for clarity on its deal plans last week — and who said he’d heard nothing in response.
“I want to see TikTok get sold. I want to see it sold now. I want to see it off the market,” said Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), a China hawk. He broadly defended Trump’s negotiating, but said, “Tariffs are a separate issue to me.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of Senate leadership, added her skepticism to a deal that combines TikTok and tariffs. “China is the one who’s hurting our products more than anybody,” she said. “I wouldn’t trust them to hold up their end of the bargain.”
Trump’s insistence on keeping TikTok alive has already caused waves of frustration on Capitol Hill, where members of both parties overwhelmingly passed a law requiring the video-sharing app to be sold by its Beijing-based owner ByteDance or face a ban in the U.S.
That was supposed to go into effect Jan. 19, but Trump suspended enforcement on his first day in office, granting 75 days of grace so that he could work out the terms of a sale. CBS News reported Tuesday that Trump and other senior officials will be presented with a final proposal on Wednesday.
So far, an array of potential buyers have made the rounds in Washington, but none have clinched a contract. China has consistently said it would not allow ByteDance to sell the popular video-sharing app with its algorithm. And that has led to creative thinking about what might close the deal — including a package offering a break on sweeping tariffs Trump has previewed for this week.
“It’s easy to list all of the reasons why this approach does not seem viable, including Chinese reluctance to engage in such a trade-off and domestic legal hurdles,” said Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former U.S. trade negotiator. “But as we’ve learned over the past 2½ months, things that seem out of the question can take on a life of their own.”
Spokespeople for Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) and House China Chair John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) did not respond to requests for comment on the idea.
Trump’s idea of tying tariffs to TikTok is the latest of many plans floated by Trump and his allies.
Another approach under discussion between Trump and software company Oracle would see U.S. user data siloed on American servers, while ByteDance would retain a stake in TikTok. Some China hawks like Moolenaar have warned that deal would go against the clear intent of the bipartisan law they passed requiring full divestment from China — but few Republicans joined him in pushing back on the president.
Republicans have focused more on the looming tariffs expected Wednesday.
Some observers doubted Beijing would agree to a narrow deal on TikTok without a larger grand bargain on trade.
“My reading is that the Chinese government is expecting there will be bigger, broader negotiations between President Trump and President Xi where they will seek to resolve several broader irritants into those relationships,” said Geoffrey Gertz, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who served as director for international economics in the Biden White House, in an interview.
He added: “Both sides will be reluctant to be making any concessions until we move into the context of broader negotiations.”
Other experts see the Trump administration’s reliance on tariffs as possibly undercutting its bargaining value. Scott Kennedy, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The administration has threatened tariffs against China for so many different reasons that it is impossible for Beijing to judge the value of slightly lower tariffs imposed in any single instance.”
For all the uncertainty, there’s a bloc of Republicans who view Trump tossing out various ideas as part of his normal way of doing business — and have no problem with that approach.
“He throws a lot out there, but he always looks for the deal,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), who served in Trump’s Cabinet in his first term. “That’s President Donald J. Trump in a package.”
Others are even more full speed ahead.
“He’s the negotiator in chief. Let him do it,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “We need to get something done about TikTok, and if that’ll work, he’s making progress.”
