After a long political saga, TikTok has established a majority-American joint venture to continue its operations in the United States despite its ties to its Chinese parent company. Here are the potential consequences of this agreement:

What impact will this have on users?

It's still unclear whether the 200 million users in the United States will notice a change. Users didn't need to download a new app, although they were asked to accept new terms of service regarding their location and data usage.

At the heart of the original conflict is TikTok's powerful algorithm, which US lawmakers feared could be used as a data collection or propaganda weapon by the Chinese government.

The new owners have promised to "retrain" the secret formula that runs the application, but the impact on the user experience remains unknown.

TikTok assures that US users will always have a "global TikTok experience," meaning that US creators can still be discovered internationally and businesses can operate anywhere in the world.

However, this US-specific algorithm raises some questions.

"Questions remain about how this new entity will interact with other versions of TikTok around the world," explains Jennifer Huddleston of the CATO Institute in Washington.

She also questions "the extent of influence the US government could exert on the algorithm and the freedom of expression concerns the arrangement could raise."

One of the main investors in the new entity is the multi-billionaire Larry Ellison, a close associate of President Donald Trump, who is also financing the recent takeover of Paramount by his son David and the takeover bid for Warner Bros. This would give the family unprecedented power over American media.

Influencers are monitoring the situation closely, as their popularity and income depend on the mysterious workings of the algorithm. Some have already migrated to other platforms, frustrated or anxious about the political turmoil.

What impact will this have on TikTok?

Before Donald Trump took office, TikTok's fate in the United States seemed set in stone by a law of Congress.

The app had even been briefly disabled in the country, its largest market, after exhausting all legal avenues. Until Donald Trump finally came to its aid.

"TikTok remains incredibly popular in the United States, but faces stronger competition than ever, particularly from Instagram," notes Minda Smiley, an analyst at Emarketer.

The algorithm that set the world on fire five years ago is no longer unique. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts now offer similar experiences of endlessly scrolling short videos, capturing attention and attracting advertisers on a comparable scale.

According to Emarketer, although US users stay longer on average on TikTok than on other networks, this time is decreasing every year, a sign that the application is struggling to retain them.

What impact will this have on national security?

The sale may have satisfied the Trump administration, but it remains to be seen whether it will satisfy the elected officials who voted for the law requiring it, warns Andrew Selepak, a professor of media at the University of Florida.

"The TikTok deal has not improved privacy for absolutely anyone and has done nothing to strengthen national security," says Kate Ruane of the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington.

The Chinese parent company ByteDance now owns just under 20% of the American joint venture, named "TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC", with the remainder divided among several predominantly American companies.

The new arrangement stipulates that key functions such as online commerce and marketing in the United States will remain under the sole control of ByteDance, which could prove problematic.

"I don't see how you can do business online without collecting data from American users," asks Andrew Selepak.

John Moolenaar, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, promised to exercise close oversight, signaling potential difficulties ahead.

According to Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond Law School, "it appears that Donald Trump has simply set aside everything that Congress was aiming for in terms of national security."