China rejects Trump's customs concessions in exchange for TikTok deal

China rejected on Thursday a hypothetical deal for the sale of social network TikTok in the United States in exchange for customs concessions, as suggested hours earlier by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Just after taking office, the Republican president set a deadline of April 5 for the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the U.S. operations of the popular video platform TikTok.

If it fails to do so, the social network, with 170 million users in the country, will be banned under a law passed last year in the name of national security.

With just days to go before that deadline, Trump on Wednesday proposed a tariff reduction to China if it approves a deal to sell TikTok, but the country's authorities did not engage in the deal.

"Regarding the TikTok issue, the Chinese side has repeatedly stated its position. The Chinese stance against imposing additional tariffs is also congruent and clear," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun.

Late in his first term, Trump attempted to ban the video platform over national security concerns, fearing that China could use the app to spy on or influence its users.

However, shortly after taking office again, he postponed the deadline set by the previous administration to ban the platform if its Chinese owners did not sell it.

Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Trump seemed confident his administration would reach "some kind of agreement" to keep TikTok in the United States. "But if it's not concluded, it doesn't matter. We'll just extend" the deadline, he added.

So far, TikTok's owners have not seemed too keen on the idea of selling the platform, which has attracted interest from several parties in the U.S., including artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, tech giants like Microsoft and Oracle, and internet celebrity MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson.