A promise to kickstart an emerging low carbon fuel industry has been sandwiched between dire warnings of Australia’s climate threats and the expected release of national targets to slash emissions.

The federal government’s $1.1 billion to support the production of cleaner fuels has been announced on the backdrop of intense debate over Australia’s climate ambition, with 2035 emissions-reduction targets expected within days.

The announcement follows a troubling preview of the nation’s future as temperatures climb, including concerning exposure to floods and other coastal hazards.

Former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie has been warning of widespread human displacement because of climate change, with as many as 80 million people from Bangladesh potentially seeking shelter in Australia as natural disasters become more severe.

Spruiking the low carbon fuels package, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the threat of climate change and the economic opportunity of net zero could not be separated.

“The worst possible outcome, from an economic point of view and an environmental point of view, would be if we walked away from net zero,” he said at an oil refinery in Brisbane alongside Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.

Net zero and its expected economic burden remains a fractious issue for the federal opposition, with a Liberal MP threatening to quit the frontbench if the party continues to back climate targets.

The economic cost of Labor’s 2035 targets will be unveiled alongside the emissions-reduction goals, Dr Chalmers confirmed.

Treasury has modelled a single figure within the 65-75 per cent range floated by the Climate Change Authority.

Low-carbon fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuel, are made from agricultural feedstocks like sugarcane, tallow, canola and cooking oils.

They can reduce aircraft emissions by 80 per cent compared to traditional jet fuel, on some estimates.

The exact design of the 10-year Cleaner Fuels Program is still being worked out, but it will likely involve grants to help companies make their processes more efficient.

The funding would start flowing from 2028 and would help hard-to-abate industries reduce their carbon emissions, Mr Bowen said, while also protecting the nation’s fuel supply.

Australia imports about 90 per cent of its liquid fuels.

Mr Bowen defended the practice of subsidising industries “starting from scratch”, arguing such spending would unlock private investment in the green industries and jobs of the future.

The announcement was welcomed by big business and the tourism sector.

Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive officer Margy Osmond said the investment would position Australia as a global leader in sustainable aviation, cruise and transport fuels.

“Ultimately, Australia is a long-haul destination and once you are here, most of our great sights and adventures are also long-haul,” she said

“Our capacity to access sustainable fuel for aviation, the cruise industry and onshore travel, is critical.”

Business Council executive director of policy Wendy Black said Australia had the natural advantages, feedstocks and expertise to become a global leader in sustainable fuels.

“But we need durable policy settings to unlock private investment at scale,” she added.

It’s taken nearly 50 years, but a state is vowing to make new homes a reality via a more efficient planning system, with advocates urging authorities to seize momentum behind the “significant” changes.

Councils in NSW will get only 10 days to dispute small variations of development applications that normally take months to be processed.

An alternative approval body panel will also be made permanent, while 16-year-old regional planning panels will be scrapped.

Premier Chris Minns touted the ambitious overhaul as the biggest reform to planning and housing in the state’s history.

His planning minister said it was time for NSW to stop “sweating the small stuff” and assure projects don’t get stuck in the system.

“It’s a necessary reset of the way the planning system and its pathways work … it tackles the practical delays that are holding up the delivery of homes and job-creating projects and driving up costs,” Paul Scully said.

The reforms rewrite large swathes of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, first passed in 1979.

The foundation of the state’s housing, infrastructure and energy delivery pipeline informs decisions about new and existing developments.

But decades of tweaks helped balloon wait times in recent years to 114 days in 2024, despite the number of applications lodged compared to 2021 falling by almost a third.

Experts note that’s partly because councils devote scarce resources to assessing low-impact projects, such as adding a deck or pergola to a house. 

“The momentum exists for this change. It hasn’t been there before,” advocacy group Sydney Yes in My Backyard chair Justin Simon told AAP.

“We like what we see here and encourage the opposition and crossbench to work with the government to get this through.”

The proposal has bipartisan support after the coalition assisted in development of the reforms.

“Our commitment is clear – we are pro-housing, pro-reform, and determined to see NSW move forward,” Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said.

Greens MP Sue Higginson said developers, rather than prospective home-owners, would be the big winners.

“Setting up the planning system to reward developers, so they can profit from building houses, won’t fix the housing affordability crisis which is where real housing pain is being felt – and it will do nothing for the 66,000 households on the wait list for social housing,” she said.

Alarm bells rang in February 2024 when the state’s productivity commission warned Sydney’s unaffordable housing market would turn it into “the city with no grandchildren”.

The commission’s research found the NSW capital lost twice as many people aged from 30 to 40 as it gained between 2016 and 2021.

According to the urban policy think tank, Committee for Sydney, the city is in a “generational housing crisis”. 

“Too often, good projects for housing, infrastructure and economic development are caught in a maze that can run through as many as 22 agencies,” CEO Eamon Waterford said.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey is promising the changes will allow NSW to leapfrog other states in its quest to build 377,000 homes in five years, under the National Housing Accord.

The long-awaited changes also establish a Development Coordination Authority to act as a single front door for advice on development applications and planning proposals on behalf of all government agencies.

Regional planning panels, brought in 16 years ago to deal with major developments of more than $30 million, will be scrapped.

The old independent bodies, which are not answerable to the planning minister, had been slow to expedite approvals, the NSW government said.

Sussan Ley has struck a conciliatory tone with climate rebels in her partyroom, suggesting a shift from the party’s long-held net zero position could be on the cards.

Liberal infighting over climate policy has reignited this week as frontbencher Andrew Hastie vowed to move to the backbench if the coalition held firm to the bipartisan position of net zero emissions by 2050.

As the party reviews the policy, the federal Liberal leader said she held misgivings with the position over cost.

“We will not have net zero at any cost because the cost can be too high,” Ms Ley said on Wednesday.

“And right now, it looks like the cost is too high when you consider what this government is about to do with its Paris targets.”

The federal government is expected to reveal its 2035 target on the road to net zero this week.

She dismissed another question on the possible fallout if Mr Hastie supported Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s bill to repeal net zero and whether she would have to ditch or modify the 2050 pledge.

“All of my colleagues are participating in the discussion on energy right now, as they should,” she said.

“I love it when people have strong views and express them.”

Mr Hastie, seen by some as a future leader, denied quitting the shadow ministry would trigger a challenge for the party’s leadership and conceded his view was in the minority among colleagues.

“I’ll serve where I’m serving as home affairs shadow right now and I’ll continue to serve until such a time as I can’t,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.

“But energy policy is something I care about.”

Mr Hastie said his relationship with Ms Ley was “fine” but added: “We’re not besties on the phone every day”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers capitalised on the bubbling tension, declaring the Liberals were run by a “weird collection of cookers and crackpots”.

“Nowhere is that more obvious than when it comes to net zero,” he said.

The spat overshadowed Ms Ley’s first major economic speech as leader on Wednesday, where she hoped to shift the political debate toward Labor’s fiscal management.

Arguing Australians’ reliance on the welfare system has “swung too far toward dependency”, Ms Ley foreshadowed a tougher coalition stance.

“It has become almost taboo in politics to suggest that not everyone is entitled to every government benefit,” she told the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.

“True compassion is sustainable compassion.

“A welfare system that attempts to be all things to all people will eventually collapse under its own weight and that outcome would hurt the most vulnerable most of all.”

Ms Ley claimed Labor was locking the nation into “permanent” dependency on the government, sending debt soaring to $1.2 trillion, threatening its top-line AAA credit rating and leaving future generations to pay.

She noted spending will reach 27 per cent of gross domestic product in 2025/26 – the highest level outside of recession since 1986 and up from 24 per cent since Labor came to office.

“We are essentially running a peacetime economy on emergency fiscal settings,” Ms Ley said.

“That is obviously not sustainable.”

In its first term, Labor produced two budget surpluses before posting a $42 billion deficit in March, just before the federal election in May.

Fuelled by increased spending, including in health and disability services, there is no forecast return to surplus in the forward estimates.

Rank-and-file Labor members are urging their leaders to take action against Israel after its war in Gaza was branded an act of genocide against Palestinians.

A United Nations inquiry cited the targeting of civilians, blocking access to food and water and killings in “far larger numbers compared to previous conflicts”.

Israel denies it’s committing genocide, causing starvation or deliberately targeting civilians.

Australia’s government is also yet to accept the headline conclusion of genocide, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong stopping short of that finding and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yet to comment while on a three-day visit to Papua New Guinea.

Labor Friends of Palestine spokesperson Peter Moss said the report confirmed the verdict of genocide that had been widely accepted by human rights experts and international aid organisations. 

“This should be the trigger for Australia to work with other UN member states to impose comprehensive sanctions and an arms embargo under international law,” he told AAP.

Mr Moss said the report also “vindicates the strongly held views of rank-and-file Labor members” with more than 100 party branches passing motions calling for sanctions against Israel.

International law expert Don Rothwell said Australia had an obligation to use all means available to prevent genocide in the strip. 

“So the answer for Australia as a party to the genocide convention is ‘yes’,” he told AAP when asked if the nation had any responsibilities following the report’s release.

Following the report, Senator Wong again condemned Israel’s denial of aid and the killing of civilians seeking food and water and declared “the Netanyahu government is more isolated than ever”.

“Australia and the international community have been clear, long before this report, that the situation in Gaza had gone beyond the world’s worst fears,” she said in a statement.

“Israel will be judged by the International Court of Justice on its compliance with the genocide convention.

“We reiterate our demand on the Netanyahu government to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, and to stop undermining a two-state solution.”

The foreign minister also reiterated Australia’s unequivocal condemnation of the designated terror group Hamas.

She called for the release of the remaining hostages it took during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when 1200 people were killed.

Leaders from 20 major aid agencies have decried an unprecedented humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel is throttling aid and supplies as the official death toll tallied by the local health ministry nears 65,000.

Hundreds of people have died from starvation and malnutrition in the strip as Israel presses ahead this week with a new offensive.

Save the Children Australia international programs director Francis Woods said the organisation needed to distribute nutritional supplements to staff to prevent their children from starving.

Mr Woods, who has worked in the field for two decades across South Sudan, Kenya, Haiti, Yemen and Libya, said he had “never witnessed anything like what is happening in Gaza”.

“This isn’t collateral damage from conflict, this is a deliberately engineered humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Israel had a right to defend itself but must comply with international law. 

“The UN should be clear-eyed about who is responsible for prolonging the suffering – Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation, that still holds Israeli hostages and continues to use civilians as human shields,” she said in a statement.

The national broadcaster is standing by one of its most senior reporters after the US president threatened to dob him in to the Australian prime minister.

In a fiery exchange about his business dealings, Donald Trump told the ABC’s Americas editor he was “hurting Australia very much”.

“Your leader is coming over to see me very soon,” Mr Trump told reporter John Lyons.

“I’m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone.”

The president’s remarks appear to confirm he will soon meet face-to-face with his counterpart Anthony Albanese. 

Neither American nor Australian officials have announced a date for the talks.

Mr Lyons irked the president by asking if it was appropriate for a US leader to be “engaged in so much business activity” while in office. 

Mr Trump said his children were running his business.

ABC News director Justin Stevens said Mr Lyons was “one of the most experienced and respected reporters in Australia”.

“His job is to ask questions. He has the ABC’s full support,” he said.

Some of the strongest criticism of Mr Trump’s remarks has come from California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“Why is Donald Trump threatening journalists? Our allies deserve respect, not intimidation,” his press office posted on X.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the reporter’s line of questioning appeared to be a legitimate one.

“I respect the ABC and I respect its independence and that extends to not second-guessing the questions asked legitimately by journalists at press conferences,” he told reporters in Brisbane on Wednesday.

“Journalists have a job to do and as far as I can tell that journalist was just doing his job.”

Mr Lyons, an award-winning journalist, defended his question.

“Our job as journalists is to ask questions that the average person would be interested in,” he told ABC TV.

“The average person in Australia would be interested in ‘how is a president becoming so wealthy in office’.”

A social media account linked to the White House said Mr Trump had smacked “down a rude foreign Fake News loser”.

Other federal MPs from across the political divide defended the ABC, saying journalists had the right to ask difficult questions.

“Trump is a bully. He thinks he can bully the press and he thinks he can bully Australia,” Greens communication spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said.

She urged Mr Albanese to raise the incident when he sits down with Mr Trump.

But Liberal senator and former ABC journalist Sarah Henderson said the national broadcaster needed to explain itself.

“At a time when trade, defence and national security are such crucial issues in our relationship with our closest ally, it would be helpful if the ABC could explain this line of questioning,” she said on X.

“Australians should expect the highest standards of our publicly funded national broadcaster.”

The prime minister is preparing to travel to the US in coming days for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.

A face-to-face with Mr Trump, either on the sidelines of the UN summit in New York or at the White House in Washington DC, now appears confirmed.

The opposition has repeatedly criticised Mr Albanese for failing to meet with Mr Trump, several months into his second term.

A coal industry “crisis” has led to hundreds of job cuts and a long-running mine to be mothballed, sparking criticism of a controversial royalty scheme.

BHP Mitsubishi Alliance has been branded “un-Australian” by the Queensland government after announcing the layoffs, with a union accusing the mining giant of spreading fear.

The alliance took aim at Queensland’s coal royalty scheme after confirming the job cuts across the state and its decision to place a Bowen Basin mine into care and maintenance from November.

“These are necessary decisions in the face of the combined impact of the Queensland government’s unsustainable coal royalties and market conditions,” alliance asset president Adam Lancey said on Wednesday.

“The simple fact is the Queensland coal industry is approaching a crisis point.”

Hundreds of jobs will be axed across the company’s state operations with the Saraji South project to be mothballed.

It is among the alliance’s five steel-making coal mines in central Queensland and one of the longest running, with operations starting in 1974.

Also under review is the BHP FutureFit Academy in Mackay, north Queensland, for workers joining the industry which has about 100 trainees, sparking a blunt response from the deputy premier.

“I think that is un-Australian,” Jarrod Bleijie said.

“They have made billions of dollars from the resources owned by Queensland taxpayers.

“They should keep investing in the future of young people who want a job in a mine or a resource sector in Queensland.”

Queensland’s Liberal National government refused to make any changes to the state’s progressive royalty regime introduced by the previous Labor regime, saying it’s locked in until 2029/30.

But the deputy premier said the Queensland government was “not at war” with the mining sector.

“We are doing everything we can as a government to make sure that Queensland is open for business, particularly in the mining sector,” Mr Bleijie said.

“We are approving leases and mining approvals far more efficiently and quicker.”

The former Labor government introduced the tiered system in 2022, delivering lucrative royalties from mining companies and taking more when coal prices are high.

It earned the state billions of extra revenue but drew the ire of mining companies and lobby groups who described it as the world’s highest coal royalty taxes.

“This is now having real impacts on regional jobs, communities and small businesses,” Mr Lancey said.

“The uncertainty this creates for our people and our communities is not taken lightly, and we will do everything we can to support them.”

BHP had warned it would not make any new investments in Queensland “under the current conditions”.

Lobby group Queensland Resources Council called for reforms, offering to work with the state government to deliver a coal royalty framework that struck “the right balance”.

The royalty scheme along with a coal price drop and soaring production costs had made it unviable to continue operating for many operations in Queensland, council CEO Janette Hewson said.

“Queensland can’t afford to continue with a bad policy that will cost more jobs and weaken our state’s economy,” she said.

The Mining and Energy Union accused the alliance of spreading fear, saying it was using coal workers and mining communities as pawns in its royalties fight.

“It’s very disappointing to see BHP close a mine as soon as coal prices come off the boil,” the union’s Queensland president Mitch Hughes said.

He said BHP’s claims about a state coal crisis were misleading and “frankly shameful”, accusing them of sulking over being forced to share windfall profits.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the royalty scheme was a matter between the Queensland government and the alliance.

“This is a difficult day for hundreds of workers and their families, and that’s our primary focus,” he said.

A delay in signing a “crocodile” defence treaty with Papua New Guinea has “no downside”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says, brushing aside claims it’s an embarrassment for Australia. 

Mr Albanese left Port Moresby on Wednesday without the hoped-for defence pact after the PNG government’s cabinet didn’t sign off on the landmark agreement in time.

He and his counterpart James Marape were expected to ratify a mutual defence treaty deepening military co-operation, but only managed a communique laying out the wording of the pact.

It marks the second time in as many weeks that Mr Albanese has failed to wrap up an actively promoted security deal with a Pacific nation amid geostrategic competition, primarily China.

Mr Albanese returned empty-handed from a visit to Vanuatu last week, after failing to land a $500 million deal that would have given Australia veto power over Chinese investment in critical infrastructure.

Australia remains hopeful of tying up that pact, as well as an enhanced security agreement with Fiji. 

If signed off with PNG, the Pukpuk Treaty – named after the pidgin word for crocodile – would elevate the two nations’ relationship to the status of an alliance – the first new one for Australia in more than 70 years.

Mr Albanese told reporters in Port Moresby after Wednesday’s signing of the communique that the pact was proposed by PNG and contained a commitment by the two nations to mutual defence.

Australia respected PNG’s democratic processes and expected the pact to be finalised in the coming weeks, Mr Albanese said.

Uncertainty remains over whether Mr Marape will be able to wrangle an agreement from his splintered governing coalition, amid concerns over what the deal would mean for PNG’s sovereignty.

Mr Marape told reporters his constant concern was that PNG didn’t have the defence force it needed to defend itself from attack.

“I have to work the fastest, quickest, earliest, the best of my ability to make sure the country is able to protect itself,” he said.

“We made a conscious choice that Australia remains our security partner of choice.” 

But PNG remained “friends to all and enemies to none” and Mr Marape said he saw no immediate threat to his country, though there were “internal security issues”.

He urged respect for China, “an enduring friend of PNG for the last 50 years”.

When asked if it was embarrassing to come away without a signed treaty, Mr Albanese said Australia respected the processes of the PNG cabinet.

“The communique today, as signed, outlines precisely what is in the treaty. We’re releasing that for everyone to see today and this is very positive, very positive. There is no downside in this whatsoever,” he said.

Mr Marape said there was no “sticking point” holding up the signing, but due process had to be allowed for and he expected a “quick turnaround”.

He rejected any suggestion China had a role in the delayed signing.

The pact would enable PNG nationals to serve in Australia’s defence force with the same pay as other members and start a pathway to citizenship.

It would also lead to the close integration of the two defence forces and trigger mutual support obligations if either country comes under attack.

Mr Albanese has been in the PNG capital this week for celebrations marking 50 years since the Pacific nation gained independence from Australia.

Celebrations wrapped up on Tuesday night with a spirited show at Port Moresby’s Sir John Guise Stadium.

It’s taken nearly 50 years, but Australia’s most populous state is vowing to make new homes a reality with a “faster and fairer” planning system that doesn’t sweat “the small stuff”.

Councils in NSW will get only 10 days to dispute small variations of development applications that normally take months to be processed, an alternative approval body panel will be made permanent and 16-year-old regional planning panels will be chucked on the scrap heap.

Premier Chris Minns is touting the ambitious overhaul as “the biggest reform” to planning and housing in the state’s history.

“Young people are not finding a place to live in the second most expensive city (Sydney) on earth, and the primary reason for that is that we’re not building enough houses,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

“The planning system is not fit-for-purpose any longer. It competes against itself.”

The reforms rewrite large swathes of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, first passed in 1979.

It’s the foundation of the state’s housing, infrastructure and energy delivery pipeline, informing decisions about new and existing developments.

Wait times for approvals have ballooned since 2021, from 75 to 114 days in 2024, despite the number of applications lodged falling by almost a third.

Experts note that’s partly because councils devote scarce resources to assessing low-impact projects, such as adding a deck or pergola to a house.

Alarm bells rang in February 2024 when the state’s productivity commission warned Sydney’s unaffordable housing market would turn it into “the city with no grandchildren”.

The commission’s research found the NSW capital lost twice as many people aged from 30 to 40 as it gained between 2016 and 2021.

According to the urban policy think tank, Committee for Sydney, the city is in a “generational housing crisis”.

“Too often, good projects for housing, infrastructure and economic development are caught in a maze that can run through as many as 22 agencies,” CEO Eamon Waterford said.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey is promising that the changes will allow the state to leapfrog others in its quest to build 377,000 homes in five years, under the National Housing Accord.

“This reform is of national significance – it will catapult NSW from having the worst planning system in the nation to the best,” he said.

“This is the next common-sense step to increase productivity.”

The long-awaited changes also establish a Development Coordination Authority to act as a single front door for advice on development applications and planning proposals on behalf of all government agencies.

Regional planning panels, brought in 16 years ago to deal with major developments of more than $30 million, will be scrapped.

The old independent bodies, which are not answerable to the planning minister, had been slow to expedite approvals, the NSW government said.

The reforms slated will free planners to focus on large-scale bricks and mortar projects, Planning Minister Paul Scully said.

“In NSW, 90 per cent of development applications are for less than $1 million – to put it simply, we are sweating the small stuff,” he said.

The changes were developed following constructive conversations with the coalition opposition, the government added.

Australia’s biggest mining company will cut hundreds of jobs and mothball one of its oldest sites, after claiming the state-based business has reached a “crisis point”.

About 750 jobs will be axed across Queensland and the Saraji South mine in the Bowen Basin will be placed into care and maintenance from November.

The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance said while the 50-50 joint venture company didn’t want to see operations paused or jobs lost, the state’s coal royalty scheme was causing issues.

“These are necessary decisions in the face of the combined impact of the Queensland government’s unsustainable coal royalties and market conditions,” alliance asset president Adam Lancy said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The simple fact is the Queensland coal industry is approaching a crisis point.”

Queensland’s Liberal National government has refused to make any changes to the state’s progressive royalty regime introduced by the the previous Labor regime, saying it’s locked in until 2029/30.

The former government introduced the tiered system in 2022, delivering lucrative royalties from mining companies and taking more when coal prices are high.

It earned the state billions of extra revenue but drew the ire of mining companies and lobby groups who described it as the world’s highest coal royalty taxes.

“This is now having real impacts on regional jobs, communities and small businesses,” Mr Lancy said.

“The uncertainty this creates for our people and our communities is not taken lightly, and we will do everything we can to support them.”

BHP also warned it would not make any new investments in Queensland “under the current conditions”.

The Queensland Resources Council is a vocal critic of the tiered scheme, saying it will deter investment in new projects.

The soon-to-be mothballed Saraji South project is one of the alliance’s five steel-making coal mines in central Queensland and one of the longest running, with operations starting in 1974.

Also under review is the BHP FutureFit Academy in Mackay, north Queensland, which trains workers joining the industry and currently has about 100 newcomers.

A Chinese state media editorial backs a US-China agreement to keep TikTok available in the United States ahead of a call between the nations’ leaders.

Investors on both sides of the Pacific are now waiting for the call scheduled for Friday between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in which the agreement reached in Madrid should be confirmed.

Progress over the popular social media app – which counts 170 million US users – is seen as key to facilitating further talks in the coming months as the world’s two largest economies chart a path beyond their current tariff truce.

Reuters has reported the deal, transferring TikTok’s US assets to US owners from China’s Bytedance, is similar to an agreement worked out earlier in 2025, but which was shelved after Trump announced steep tariffs on Chinese goods.

“China reached the relevant consensus with the United States on the TikTok issue because it is based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation,” the official People’s Daily said in a commentary.

The article was signed “Zhong Sheng” or “Voice of China”, a term the paper of the governing Communist Party uses to express views on foreign policy.

“China will review matters related to TikTok’s technology exports and intellectual property licensing in accordance with the law,” the commentary added.

After meeting with Chinese negotiators in Madrid earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a September 17 deadline that could have disrupted the app in the US could be extended by 90 days to allow the deal to be finalised, without giving any further details. 

Earlier, Trump said a deal had been agreed between the United States and China to keep TikTok operating in the US.

“We have a deal on TikTok … We have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,” Trump told a White House briefing, without providing further details.

Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative, told reporters the US and China had reached “basic framework consensus” to co-operatively resolve TikTok-related issues, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade co-operation.

Bessent told CNBC the commercial terms of the deal had, in essence, been done since about March with just a few details left to be ironed out.

“This deal wouldn’t be done without proper safeguards for US national security,” Bessent said.

“It seems as though we were also able to meet the Chinese interest.”

CNBC reported the deal is expected to be closed within the next 30 to 45 days, and the agreement will include existing investors in TikTok’s China-based parent ByteDance and new investors.

The United States has said TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance makes it beholden to the Chinese government.

But the company has said US officials have misstated its ties to China, arguing its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the US on cloud servers operated by Oracle while content moderation decisions that affect US users are also made in the country.

with AP