U.S. and China close to TikTok deal amid fresh Nvidia ruling

Trade talks between the U.S. and China moved ahead Monday, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying an agreement on TikTok was nearly done.

“I think on the TikTok deal itself, we are very close or we’ve resolved the issue,” Bessent told reporters as he arrived for the second day of meetings in Madrid, but he added that Chinese officials had made “aggressive asks” during the talks.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, also in Spain, said trade issues had been raised with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng’s team, though the two sides had not “found a path forward on that.”

TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance faces another deadline this week to reach a deal that would allow the app to keep running in America. President Donald Trump, speaking on Sunday, said the company’s future depended on Beijing’s choices. “We may let it die, or we may — I don’t know, it depends,” he said. “Up to China.”

The comments came as Beijing said Nvidia had broken a competition law with a deal it completed five years ago, a decision that could complicate the trade talks.

Chinese regulators on Monday released findings from a first review of Nvidia’s $7 billion purchase of Mellanox Technologies. Regulators said the deal broke competition rules and that a longer probe will follow, without giving details on possible penalties.

The deal was approved in 2020 on the condition that Nvidia treat Chinese firms fairly. Nvidia stock fell about 2% in premarket trading Monday after the announcement.

Nvidia has become a key player in the wider tech dispute between the two countries. U.S. rules block sales of its most advanced computer chips to China, leading the company to redesign products. Beijing has since urged local companies to avoid Nvidia’s H20 chip.

The chip dispute has also widened further in recent days, after China opened new cases against U.S. suppliers over the weekend, including a pricing investigation into some products from chip company Texas Instruments.

The talks in Madrid come at a delicate moment. Officials from both sides have stepped up contact in recent weeks, aiming to prepare for a possible meeting between Trump and President Xi Jinping at a summit in South Korea. Talks lasted almost six hours on Sunday, covering technology, trade, and the wider economy, officials said.