United States. TikTok Confirms Agreement Including Oracle and Walmart

The TikTok application, subsidiary of the Chinese company ByteDance threatened with ban on United States, announced on Saturday that it had prepared an agreement involving Oracle as a technology partner in the United States and Walmart as a business partner.

“Security issues resolved”

US President Donald Trump had mentioned a possible agreement ” fantastic “ with Oracle and Walmart regarding the activities of the Chinese application TikTok on American soil. “I gave my approval to the deal. If they make it happen, so much the better. If this is not the case, that will also be fine ”, said the Republican president, before flying off to a campaign rally in North Carolina.

“We are pleased that the proposal from TikTok, Oracle and Walmart resolves the security concerns raised by the US administration and resolves questions regarding the future of TikTok in the United States”, a spokeswoman told AFP when the American president had indicated earlier in the day that he had given the green light to the agreement. The deal also provides that the two American companies can buy up to 20% of shares in TikTok before a future IPO.

First US sanctions against Tiktok, accused of threatening the national security of United States, are to come into force on Sunday. Indeed, the tenant of the White House has been claiming for weeks that TikTok, whose parent company is the Chinese company ByteDance, is spying on behalf of Beijing, without having made public any evidence.

Hiring of at least “25,000 people”

In early August, he issued a decree giving ByteDance until September 20, i.e. Sunday, to cede TikTok’s activities on American soil to a company « made in US ».

The application, which allows short videos to be played and is very popular with young people, has some 100 million users in the United States.

Donald Trump did not give details on Saturday on how the deal between TikTok, Oracle and Walmart would be struck, but indicated that “Security will be 100%” and that companies will use “Separate servers”.

The agreement also provides, according to the president, the hiring “Of at least 25,000 people” in the United States and the creation of a head office in Texas for a company “Which will have nothing to do with China” but will continue to be called TikTok.

“Donation of around 5 billion dollars”

The companies involved will also “A donation of around 5 billion dollars” for “The education of young Americans”, added the American president who had insisted that the government be paid for having authorized the agreement.

TikTok, Walmart and Oracle did not immediately respond to AFP’s requests.

On Friday, the US administration announced that it would ban the downloading of TikTok in the United States from Sunday.

Washington had, however, left a door open to the application by leaving it until November 12 before completely prohibiting it from operating on its soil.

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