Trump says US and China approve TikTok deal after call with Xi
The two leaders will meet at a summit in South Korea next month.
Donald Trump announced Friday that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping approved an agreement for a group of investors to take control of TikTok’s US operations, capping off months of tense negotiations that put the video-sharing app at the center of trade talks between the two sides.
“I just completed a very productive call with President Xi of China. 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 said on his Truth Social platform.
Mr Trump said he and Mr Xi agreed to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea this fall and that he would travel to China early next year, and that Xi would reciprocate. “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 said.
Negotiators from both sides discussed the agreement during trade talks in Madrid earlier this week, then needed Mr Trump and Mr Xi to sign off to finalize it.
A spokeswoman for TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Xi appeared to support a commercial solution to TikTok while asserting China’s legal authority over the app’s core technology, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
“The Chinese government respects the wishes of the company and is pleased to see businesses conduct commercial negotiations based on market rules to reach a solution that complies with Chinese law and regulations while balancing the interests of all parties,” Mr Xi was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
The Chinese leader also expressed his hope that the U.S. would provide an “open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment” for Chinese companies investing in the US.
Mr Trump and Mr Xi didn’t release details of the deal. But under the terms the two sides have been discussing, a new US entity would be created to operate the app and take control away from China’s ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. A consortium of new TikTok investors and existing backers would together own roughly 80 per cent of the entity, with ByteDance’s ownership dropping below 20 per cent to comply with a US law passed last year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
The new investors would own about half the company, while existing ones in ByteDance, including Susquehanna International, KKR and General Atlantic, would hold roughly 30 per cent.
The deal would include several Trump loyalists. Billionaire Jeff Yass, one of the largest contributors to Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign, co-founded Susquehanna. Another Trump donor, William Ford, is chief executive of General Atlantic, which also holds a sizable stake in ByteDance. Mr Ford sits on the ByteDance board.
Trump ally Larry Ellison, co-founder of cloud-computing giant Oracle, is also involved. Oracle would be involved in continuing to handle US user data.
The group of new investors has fluctuated as negotiations continued in recent months. Private-equity firm Blackstone and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz are among the candidates for the consortium that are no longer expected to be part of the deal, according to people familiar with the matter.
TikTok’s Chinese ownership has fueled national-security concerns in Washington for many years. Officials worried that China could access user data for the roughly 170 million Americans on the platform, claims that TikTok has disputed. They started a yearslong saga that dates back to Trump’s first term, when he sought to ban the app in 2020 and Oracle and Walmart got involved in a deal that never materialized.
After the law passed last year, Mr Trump began using the app to reach young voters during the election and saw a deal as a way to increase his popularity while preserving value for US investors.
“I like TikTok. It helped get me elected,” Mr Trump said Thursday during a joint news conference in the UK with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, referring to high voter turnout among young people. “That was a reason we won the election by such a big number.”
The US and China are still negotiating a broader trade agreement, with talks centered on Mr Trump’s desire for China to crack down on the movement of chemicals used to make the drug fentanyl and China hoping the US will reduce tariffs. China’s access to US chips and other technology is also being discussed, with both sides using export restrictions to gain leverage.
Wall Street Journal
