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Time for TikTok to be sold to the Americans.
Why are you restricting a Chinese company which is doing legitimate business in the United States?
I get thousands of views a day on my content, where on other social media platforms, I'm just not getting that.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
This is Andrew Peach on the way.
President Trump has just approved the deal which sees the ownership of TikTok transferred from a Chinese firm to a group of Americans.
Also today trouble brewing for some of the big coffee chains and why wine is key to this weekend's election in Moldova.
First to that breaking story in the last hour President Trump signing the executive order to facilitate the sale of TikTok from a Chinese company to a group of American investors.
This is interesting because I had a very good talk with President Xi.
A lot of respect for him.
Hopefully he has a lot of respect for me too.
And we talked about TikTok and other things, but we talked about TikTok and he gave us the go-ahead.
You know, it's run by American investors and American companies.
Great ones, great investors, the biggest.
You don't get bigger, I don't imagine.
TikTok had faced a deadline for its Chinese owners to find a buyer or see it banned in the US.
The video sharing app, which is owned by ByteDance, has more than 170 million users there.
In the Oval Office, standing alongside President Trump, the US Vice President, J.D.
Vance, gave more details of the deal.
The company will be valued around $14 billion.
We actually think this is a good deal for investors, but ultimately the investors are going to make the determination about what they want to invest in and what they think is a proper value.
The most important thing is that it does protect Americans' data security.
It ensures TikTok is still accessible.
And on this question of the algorithm, which we've heard this a lot, What this deal ensures is that the American entity and the American investors will actually control the algorithm.
We don't want this used as a propaganda tool by any foreign government.
We want to make sure that our people and our investors actually make these decisions based on what's good for their business.
US concerns about TikTok are well documented.
But what does China think?
Well, last week, on the program, we spoke to Wendy Cutler, senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington.
China's main concerns are why are you restricting a Chinese company which is doing legitimate business in the United States?
This is unfair and we want access and we wanna be able to have our companies operate without unfair restrictions being put on.
Furthermore, once it was legislated that TikTok needed to be sold to a US company, they're very concerned about why do we have to sell our algorithms to a US company?
Now, to talk about this, we're live in San Francisco.
We're live in Austin, Texas.
We're live in New York.
First, our North America tech correspondent, Lily Jamali, who's in San Francisco.
What is the new deal then, Lily?
What did we learn?
In some respects, more of the same.
If I can be honest.
We learned that the investors include Oracle, which is chaired, of course, by a close Trump political ally, Larry Ellison, who was name checked.
Oracle was during this news conference held at the Oval Office this afternoon.
Donald Trump also mentioned Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch, both entrepreneurs.
He said they are involved.
But then we saw J.D.
Vance interject to say that more details about this investor consortium who exactly is buying TikTok would be revealed in the coming days.
Worth noting here some of the language that Donald Trump used around what Beijing is saying, what President Xi has said.
He was almost speaking on behalf of President Xi, in a way, saying that he had approved this.
He wanted things to move forward here.
But we haven't heard confirmation from Beijing.
I've also reached out to TikTok.
I've reached out to ByteDance.
Neither have confirmed that there is a deal.
OK.
We were all a bit light on detail about how it ensures the privacy of American users, which is supposedly what this is all about.
We were told repeatedly that it did, but no one told us how.
Yeah, and that is one of the two aspects of sort of the thinking.
Why was there this law, passed last year by Congress on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, to enact either a sale to American buyers or have the app be banned here in the US?
? was part of that conversation.
The other was how might Beijing be controlling the algorithm to push certain types of political content in front of American users?
We should note that TikTok has denied that any of that kind of activity has been taking place here.
This data is secure in their telling of things.
And that there's no propaganda machine here.
There's no political manipulation.
But under this deal, the way we understand it, is that this American entity will control the algorithm.
The details of that still a bit murky, but our understanding is that they will, I guess, somehow copy this algorithm.
It's going to be millions of lines of code. inspect it, retrain the algorithm and then operate it.
And all of this process will be overseen by Oracle, the tech giant based here in Redwood City.
Well, now it's now based in Nashville, Tennessee, but based here in the United States.
Right.
And we were told that it couldn't be used for any propaganda purposes although, with a big smile, Donald Trump said of course he'd love it to be used to disseminate MAGA propaganda, his propaganda.
That's right.
He did say that, and then he sort of said, but it's not going to work out that way.
And so these algorithms are incredibly powerful.
It does matter who controls it.
J.D.
Vance said at one point that the algorithm – will be there to service the commercial interests of the company that owns it, of this new US entity.
That that's who the algorithm will serve.
It will not serve a political agenda.
We're promised more in the coming days.
Thank you very much, Lily.
Lily Jamali in San Francisco.
Live now to Austin, Texas, and Jordan Smith. who runs the elevated closet clothes business there.
You're a big TikTok user.
It's how you connect with your clients.
And to explain, Jordan, you make clothes for tall women.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's really hard to find my niche.
As you can imagine, there is no demographic for height across social media.
So finding these women is like finding a needle in a haystack.
And TikTok has done such a great job with their algorithm in finding the women who need to find me.
I just hit 30,000 followers on TikTok and it has really exploded my business because of it.
Right.
So you must have been worried when, you know, there was talk of TikTok being banned.
It was suspended in the US for a brief period.
That must have been a bit of a nightmare.
It's a total nightmare.
You know, for me being such a small business, it's over 50, if not more, at this point of my business.
And so if it goes away, I don't know if my business could get through it.
So you are hearing some detail about the fact that a deal has been done.
We've had the move music for quite a little while.
President Trump thought TikTok was very important.
He wanted it to be sorted out in some way so people like yourself could continue to use it.
That must be a relief.
Yeah, you know, it's a relief.
I'm also a little nervous on what exactly that means.
Like, I know there's talk of moving to a different app.
And like, does that mean our followers go with this?
And like, will it work the same?
You know, there's all those questions that are still out there.
Okay.
And I mean, are you worried about the security of the algorithm?
Has it ever given you any cause for concern?
I've never had cause for concern of it.
I've been a personal user and now as my business.
I've never seen anything or felt unsafe on the app.
So for me, not personally, but I can understand why the government might be worried about that.
And I'm worried about that too.
As long as everything's, you know, being taken care of, I'm happy.
Yeah.
Right.
And in terms of it being taken care of.
You're watching.
It was interesting to see Donald Trump and JD.
Vance talking about this in the Oval Office in the last hour because they're saying it's been taken care of but no one has any idea how really.
Yeah well, I think that that's the scary part is if they, as long as someone says it's being taken care of, everyone thinks it's being taken care of, but we don't really have proof of it.
So I don't know how we're going to find that out.
And does it now mean you can get on with your business?
I don't know if there's anything you've been holding back seeing what happened with TikTok or anything of that sort, but it now means you can go full steam ahead.
You know, I've just been pushing ahead, just waiting until the day that it goes away.
You know, I thought it went away several months ago and I was pretty devastated and it came back the next day.
So I'm just kind of chugging along and just seeing what happens.
Interesting.
Well, good luck with that.
That's Jordan Smith live with us from Austin, Texas, now to New York.
And Kerry Leahy, economist at Columbia University, who's there.
What do you make of what we've seen, Kerry?
Well, I'm not a TikTok user.
I can certainly understand the people have done very well that wanted to stay around.
And that's one of the reasons why the president wants us to stay around.
He's a master of social media.
It's another platform.
But security concerns are definitely valid.
And the people that are coming in to in some sense bail things out aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.
But supposedly they'll make some money out of it.
And that might mean that the average cost of TikTok to an entrepreneur is going to go up to pay for their sizable investment.
Though that makes the president happy, they still want to make some money on it.
Let's talk about Amazon.
A lot of talk about Amazon in the US today.
They've been told off.
They've been fined, in fact, over their promotion of their service, Amazon Prime.
Fined a huge amount, but perhaps not a huge amount for them.
Well, that's the point.
25 billion is not pocket change, but the firm made nearly 70 billion last year and had revenues of almost 10 times that.
So you're only talking about 3% or 4% of profitability.
Would a number more like 10% of profits grab their attention?
But it's still a number and I think the government would probably be happy to run away with that number, but it easily could have been a lot worse for Amazon.
There's also news from Jaguar Land Rover, who've been the victims of a cyber attack.
They say today that some of their systems are now back online, so capacity is just starting to be increased again.
We'll give one step back to Norval running for JLR.
What impact is that having on them and around the world for their supply chains and customers?
Well, I don't believe it's had much impact on the supply chain, at least for now.
I mean obviously, if you had some serious hacking that was shutting down operations for days, if not a couple of weeks, it would be a big deal.
But I think firms just expect that to happen, particularly a large firm like Ford, which is probably –.
You know, it's a huge, famous capitalist name.
To go after them would probably not only generate revenue for the hackers, but also take down a big company that represents capitalism at its best and its worst.
So I don't think it'd be a big deal if it lasts less than a week.
Well, JLRSA.
It's now able to process invoices and they can start clearing the backlog of payments to suppliers.
So they've got to work through all of that.
Bosch, the German company, is in the news as well.
They've talked about shedding 13,000 jobs.
Now.
Admittedly, this is within the next five years, but we are talking about one of the big auto suppliers in the world.
Oh, absolutely.
There was an old remark about the company that they're good at making everything except money, and they do have a question of profitability.
And investors got very excited about just about anything that had to do with manufacturing or the defense establishment in Germany, thinking it was going to get a lot bigger given the geopolitical concerns.
But going forward with the uh, the changes in the wind and there maybe won't be as big a manufacturing build-up or as much money spent on defense.
Companies like bosch are going to get hurt by that, even if they're run very well.
So they want to get ahead of the curve, announce big uh layoffs so they can roll in over a five-year period.
So over a short period of one or three months there will be layoffs, but they won't be debilitating.
Carrie leahy at columbia university, do stay with me.
This is world business report with andrew peach here on the bbc world service.
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Moldova has more vineyard per capita than any other country in the world.
That's my favourite thing I've learned today.
Wine is vital to the economy of Moldova.
This small Eastern European nation, which is nestled between Romania and Ukraine, goes to the polls this weekend.
But what is the choice facing the electorate there and therefore Moldova's winemakers?
Well, my colleague Morgan Eyre has journeyed to the capital.
Keisha now.
So as you're walking around the capital of Chisinau, the elections are impossible to miss.
You know, there's tents, flyers, campaigners everywhere.
And really at the heart of this debate is kind of whether Moldova will continue down its pro-EU path or Or it will take on a more friendly Russian approach.
And that question is felt very strongly in the wine industry.
You know, it's really one of the country's biggest sources of pride.
You speak to winemakers here and they say it's the heart and soul, really, of the country.
And for the last two decades producers have really been trying to well.
They've been forced to pivot away from Russia.
It was their biggest market choice.
And exports dropped from around $320 million in 2005 to around $234 million in 2024.
So winemakers over these past two decades have really been working hard to open new markets.
One of those markets is the European Union and membership there.
And so winemakers are kind of feeling that as well because they have costs on customs.
They also have to import a lot of their raw materials, from the cardboard to the the slaves on their wine bottles.
And Naira Malin, she's from Melissi Mici Winery.
It's a big state-owned winery.
And she told me building new relationships with the European Union could make it much easier.
At this moment, a lot of companies in Moldova, they stay very good with the European partners.
But of course we have some obstacles like customs procedures, like import fees and so on and so forth.
And even the transportation.
It's not so easy to find the transport for a reasonable price because we are not the members of the EU.
And it causes some, again, consequences.
Morgan, obviously Moldova has been affected by US tariffs like so many countries around the world.
How is that affecting the wine industry there?
For such a small country like Moldova, initially those tariffs started at 31%.
Now, these have since reduced to around 25%.
But that still is a big blow to, as I said, a small economy with a population of around 2 million people.
Now I spoke to the Secretary of State for Agriculture, Andrian de Golien, and he said that it was significant because he explained that Moldovan wine did have an American boom, if you like, in 2024, but the tariffs and that America First policy have cooled that.
Another producer from a company called Lion Grey, their CEO, Anatoly Zlotya.
He said that they were really trying to expand their markets even further to parts of Asia, but he acknowledged that the tariffs were tough.
The main market for us is Romania.
Okay, European countries, there is like Canada, United States and China.
Unfortunately, this year after these US tariffs, I think we're going to see a little bit of down export for this market.
And we will concentrate ourselves on discovering or opening new markets like North Africa, maybe Asia.
South Korea is a good market for us as well.
So this is becoming quite a long list of challenges.
EU membership, US tariffs, anything else on it?
Yes, I spoke to several winemakers and they all sort of had the same thing to say.
There was one of the winemakers at a winery called Carlevana.
He said that visibility was a really big problem for them because for Moldovan winemakers it's really difficult to compete with other kind of more I guess established winemakers countries when it comes to winemaking, like France and Italy and Argentina and the likes of it.
Now, the government has been trying to kind of alleviate some of that.
You know, they've set up what's called the National Office of Vine and Wine.
It's a public-private venture to help with promotion and marketing.
But speaking to the producers, they did say that they need more help in this sphere.
Also you Issues of climate change as well.
That's kind of making temperatures hotter, more sugar, it's affecting the grapes and so on and so forth.
So there are, as you said, there are a lot of challenges.
And the government did say.
When I spoke to that Secretary of State for the Agricultural Ministry, he gave me a list of things that they were doing to help producers.
And that includes replanting, you know, kind of getting rid of old vineyards and replanting more.
So they're currently offering subsidies of around €10000 per hectare, with plans to increase that to €15000 per hectare by 2026.
Morgan Air in Moldova.
Now is the dream of home ownership slipping out of the reach of many Americans.
Prices are climbing.
Supply can't keep up with demand.
High interest rates are keeping sellers on the sidelines.
Tariffs and rising construction costs are squeezing the builders too.
Here's Monica Miller.
Robert McKenna is settling into his new home in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Come here.
He now has time to enjoy his new backyard and play fetch with Kia, a five-year-old golden doodle.
He and his wife, Megan, say they are happy the house hunting process is finally over.
So, I mean, we would look at maybe 15 homes sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday.
Like literally, we'd leave our house at like 9 am, get home by like 6 pm, eat and want to just sleep.
For generations, homeownership in the U.S. has been a path to stability and wealth.
But today, many Americans say the dream feels out of reach.
The couple looked at dozens of homes and lost eight bidding wars before finally landing a house, even with solid jobs in health care and finance.
I finally get to a number that I'm happy with.
I can see myself living in it.
And then you get the news, hey, guess what?
You didn't get this one.
Across the country.
High prices, scarce supply and historically high mortgage rates are keeping many potential homebuyers locked out.
Some homeowners who paid off their properties or refinanced during the pandemic are reluctant to sell, while younger buyers are struggling to compete.
Real estate agents like Diane Loomis say speed is everything.
You don't have the time to process here.
Stay up all night because I'd like to think about it.
Start thinking because it may not be there tomorrow.
So this will be four bedrooms.
I think there's actually.
Homebuyers and real estate agents aren't the only people impacted by the shifts in the market.
Andrew Kay is a real estate developer in New Jersey.
With material shortages that came out of COVID and now tariffs being in place, it's an extremely uncertain industry.
Real estate developers often face a patchwork of zoning laws permitting delays and local opposition that slow or block new construction.
Andrew says codes and regulations were once more lenient.
There were mistakes made in the 70s and 80s with regard to land planning and stormwater and things that were not accounted for.
And now, as I said, I think we've just gone too far in the other direction, mostly out of fear of oh no, what if that happens again?
Washington lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are alarmed.
Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, but a bipartisan bill is making its way through Congress.
Someone should say praise the Lord.
That's a miracle like Peter walking on the water.
Speaking at an event in Washington, the bill's co-sponsor, Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, says it aims to expand affordable housing, reduce regulatory barriers and improve oversight of federal housing initiatives.
Solving this problem.
It's got to be paramount for decision makers all across the spectrum of government and frankly, in the private sector as well.
So I look at this through the eyes of a kid who wanted a front yard to play in and not just a concrete driveway.
Home ownership remains a cornerstone of the American dream.
The Fed's rate cuts could help more buyers chase it, even if the cost of that dream has never been higher.
You can hear more of Monica Miller's report by searching for Business Daily, wherever you get your BBC podcasts from.
Now the coffee chain Starbucks is going to lay off hundreds of staff and close 100 stores across North America.
This is part of a $1 billion restructuring plan.
It's also going to close many open or vacant positions.
Notifying its employees who are affected on Friday.
So why is Starbucks feeling the heat?
Heather Haddon is restaurants reporter for The Wall Street Journal with me live on World Business Report.
What's the problem, Heather?
Yeah, so CEO Brian Nicol has taken over Starbucks and been on the job around a year now.
And he's facing a lot of challenges.
So sales have fallen.
He's facing cost challenges.
And the consumer is just not feeling like paying when they go out either to a restaurant or starbucks.
I mean, there's a lot of just tightness in the restaurant industry generally here.
So he's making tough choices and he's also making a big bet that investing more in the stores and hospitality in the stores is going to bring him sales.
But to do that that's expensive, so he's laying off people and closing stores in the meantime.
So it's a list of issues.
Is it that people just aren't buying coffee or are they going somewhere else to buy their coffee?
Yeah, I think it's a number of things.
And one, like you said, is more competitors.
There's a lot more competitors in the US right now and places people can go to get coffee or to get increasingly energy drinks or cold beverages, which a lot of young people like.
And these newer chains are popping up all over the country, often just drive-thrus you know no place to sit, and often they're cheaper or faster or have flavors that people prefer, and so he's battling that.
And then just people here are still sick of inflation, so a lot of folks are looking for places to trim back when they're spending.
Where do you look?
A cup of coffee.
You can make it at home, and so people are doing that.
Actually, the cost of coffee has risen pretty sharply.
Starbucks aren't pointing to that, though, is the reason.
No, they're not.
The CEO has promised to keep prices of beverages level through the end of their fiscal year, which actually ends next week.
But yeah absolutely, coffee costs for the beans is growing and eventually Starbucks is probably going to have to deal with that.
I mean, the cost is certainly—they're feeling the cost now.
But the question is will they have to raise prices further?
The CEO has said he does not want to do that, but—
Clearly, the costs have to be absorbed from somewhere.
Yeah.
I mean listeners will know that in some parts of the world there's been a boycott of Starbucks shops and products over the war in Gaza.
Is that part of this story?
Well, yeah, that goes back to 2023.
And it certainly has hurt the chain in a lot of ways in the Middle East, in Europe, in college campuses, in Southeast Asia.
And, you know, talking to the company, they say that things have gotten better.
They've tried to do more marketing in some of these countries.
They've tried to show that the operators who are running these coffee shops in these countries are actually from there.
But I think there is still a bit of an overhang.
So, you know, where have the sales gone?
They've been chipped away in a lot of different places.
But the CEO has a plan to try to bring them back, and we'll see if that works.
In a way, it sounds like the biggest issue is perhaps where you started, which is the problem for young people is Starbucks is where your dad might go.
So it doesn't necessarily feel like a young and vibrant brand.
And whether it can be turned into that is a big question for the new boss.
Yeah, and he is doing things that Starbucks really hasn't done before, like marketing and advertising.
They are going to be partners with the Olympics in 2028, you know, running ads on TV.
I mean, it's just not something traditionally Starbucks has had to do.
But this is a new day and younger consumers yeah might not have the same opinions of Starbucks as their mom and dad, when there was just less options.
So they need to introduce themselves in a new way to these younger consumers.
Heather, thank you.
And Kerry Lee here at Columbia Uni, very quick word about how they're doing in the market?
Well, they didn't do so well recently or today, but they are trying, so the market is certainly willing to give them a very significant pass going forward.
Thank you very much indeed to Kerry and all my guests.
You'll find more if you go online to the BBC News website at bbc.com slash news.
But from me, Andrew Peach and the whole team here on World Business Report.
Thank you for listening to the programme today.
America is changing, and so is the world.
But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.
It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story.
Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
