TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has been at the center of controversy in the U.S. for years now due to concerns about user data potentially being accessed by the Chinese government. As a result, U.S. users have often found themselves caught in the middle of this tension. Last year, the app experienced a temporary outage in the U.S. that left millions of users in suspense before it was quickly restored.
In 2022, Jake Sullivan, then national security adviser under President Joe Biden and a powerful figure in the White House's foreign policy team, assembled an interagency planning exercise out of the Situation Room: What were all the possible circumstances and outcomes of an AI arms race between the US and China - from trade wars to real wars, possibly even the arrival of AGI - and how would the federal government respond?
TikTok was technically banned in the U.S. as of January 19th, 2025, as part of the Senate-approved " Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act." But upon his inauguration as President on January 20th, President Trump issued an Executive Order to withhold enforcement of the bill, in order to give his team an opportunity to potentially re-negotiate the details.
China's exports rebounded in November after an unexpected contraction the previous month, pushing its trade surplus past $1 trillion for the first time, according to data released Monday. Exports climbed 5.9% from a year earlier in November while imports rose just under 2%. The customs data released on Monday also showed that shipments to the U.S. dropped nearly 29% year-on-year. But as trade with the U.S. weakens, China is diversifying its export markets throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America.
TikTok, one of the world's most popular social media platforms, announced Wednesday that it will build its first data center in Latin America in Brazil, near the city of Fortaleza. The project represents a $38 billion investment. The Chinese company's supercomputers, which have revolutionized the internet with their short videos that are followed by hundreds of millions of users, will be operational in 2027 and will be powered exclusively by 100% renewable energy, according to a TikTok statement.
An influential bipartisan congressional commission is urging lawmakers to create a new economic statecraft office to enforce U.S. sanctions, limit Chinese influence in the electrical grid, and release funding to maintain dominance in cyber and quantum technologies - warning that the national security threat from Beijing has escalated over the past year and could threaten the United States in a future conflict.
You don't want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country-destroy our entire university and college system-I don't want to do that,
Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Bessent said the transaction would be formally endorsed by President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping during a bilateral meeting in Korea later this week. "We reached a final deal on TikTok," Bessent said. "We reached it in Madrid, and I believe all the details are ironed out. It will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction."
In my view, the easing of tensions between the United States and China has been the primary catalyst behind this surge, since markets have long considered the trade relationship between the world's two largest economies a direct threat to global trade flows and supply chains, especially when tariff rhetoric dominated the scene. The recent agreement between U.S. and Chinese negotiators on key issues gives markets a long-awaited breather and paves the way for a meeting between Trump and Xi that could cement these understandings.
The negotiations offer an occasion to stop to consider how China went from technological backwater to superpower in less than half a lifetime, and an opportunity for the United States to learn from that success. U.S. companies can work to regain hardware-manufacturing expertise, absorb knowledge and talent from some of China's best companies, and shift their approach toward AI, encouraging more practical applications and open-source innovation. The United States must accept that we can be better while not relinquishing our strengths.
Trump assured that China has agreed to delay its restrictions on rare earth exports, one of the main points of conflict, for a period of one year, and announced an immediate reduction from 20% to 10% on the tariffs imposed in February on Chinese products due to Washington's claim Beijing is not doing enough to stop exports of fentanyl precursors.
During his trip through Asia this week, President Trump signed agreements about rare earths with several nations. It's part of an effort to reduce U.S. reliance on China for the elements, which are critical to make everything from electric vehicles to jet fighters. The agreements are short on detail and with a long timeline. NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports.
