Trump, Xi give ‘approval’ on plan for TikTok deal

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U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping gave their “approval” to a plan to sell TikTok’s American operations to an American buyer in a Friday telephone call amid the continuing trade war between the two countries.

Mr. Trump, however, did not release any details of the prospective deal for the video platform, particularly popular with youth – nor did the Chinese government confirm it – suggesting that the sale is still being worked on.

The two leaders began the call at 8 a.m. ET, holding only their second direct exchange since Mr. Trump returned to office this year. After the conversation, Mr. Trump labelled it “very productive” in a Truth Social post.

“We made progress on many very important issues including Trade, Fentanyl, the need to bring the War between Russia and Ukraine to an end, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” he wrote.

He added that he would visit China early next year, Mr. Xi would come to the U.S. “at an appropriate time” and the pair would also catch up at the APEC summit in South Korea in November.

“The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC!” Mr. Trump wrote.

A Chinese summary of the call was even vaguer on the status of the TikTok deal and did not explicitly say Mr. Xi had approved anything.

“China’s position on the TikTok issue is clear: The Chinese government respects the will of companies and is pleased to see companies conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules and reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and balance interests,” the statement read.

It praised recent talks with the U.S. as having “reflected a spirit of equality, respect, and mutual benefit,” but admonished Washington to “avoid unilateral trade restrictions” and appeared to obliquely chide the country’s efforts to force a TikTok sale.

“It is hoped that the U.S. will provide an open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies investing in the U.S.,” the summary read.

Trump extends TikTok shutdown deadline again after framework deal with China

Mr. Trump is seeking to avoid a congressional ban on TikTok by having its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sell it to an American buyer. Then-president Joe Biden and Congress passed legislation last year to ban the platform in the U.S. if it remained in Chinese hands.

The concern is that it could be used to hoover up data on Americans for China’s spy agencies and to push misinformation or propaganda on behalf of the authoritarian regime in Beijing.

Mr. Trump, however, has not enforced the ban while he tries to broker a deal with a U.S. buyer. Earlier this week, he issued a fourth enforcement delay, which will last until December.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal under discussion would see a group of U.S. investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz, take an 80-per-cent ownership stake in TikTok with 20 per cent remaining in the hands of Chinese shareholders. Mr. Trump has said that the U.S. government would also be paid a fee as part of the agreement.

Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder, is a friend and ally of Mr. Trump’s, and his company already hosts TikTok’s U.S. data on its servers.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng reached an agreement in Madrid this past weekend, Mr. Trump has said, but needed him and Mr. Xi to sign off. The Treasury Department has been more circumspect, saying only that the two sides agreed on a “framework” for a deal.

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Some observers, meanwhile, say that the ultimate deal may still leave TikTok closely tied to China.

Craig Singleton, a China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative Washington think tank, said that even if TikTok is sold to an American, it might still use ByteDance’s content recommendation algorithm, allowing China to shape what American users of the app see.

“If it remains tied to ByteDance through licensing or updates, Beijing keeps a lever on American political discourse, youth culture, and even elections,” Mr. Singleton warned in a statement.

Mr. Trump’s reluctance to follow through on the TikTok ban – which would undoubtedly anger young social-media users – stands in sharp contrast to his escalation of the U.S. trade war on China since he returned to office. He has imposed a blanket tariff of 30 per cent on most Chinese goods, with some subject to higher levies, drawing a 10-per-cent retaliatory rate from China.

Ahead of Friday’s call, Chinese state media hailed the Madrid meeting as a major step forward, noting that Mr. Trump has come under pressure domestically because the fallout from his tariff policies is starting to hit American farmers and consumers.

“Washington’s trade war against China has been a lose-lose endeavour, often backfiring badly,” the state-run Global Times said in an editorial this week.

Writing in the state-run China Daily on Friday, Zhang Zhipeng, a researcher at Fudan University’s School of Marxism, said the talks in Madrid “opened a window of opportunity to address the issues preventing the normalization of Sino-U.S. relations.”

“The trajectory of the dispute over TikTok shows the United States is in a structural predicament over its technology policy toward China: Its strategy of putting excessive pressure on China is significantly constrained by domestic political, economic and social factors,” Mr. Zhang wrote.