President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to speak by phone on Friday (September 19), with TikTok, trade, and other key geopolitical issues taking center stage.
Speaking at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the UK on Thursday (September 18), Trump said: “We will speak with President Xi on Friday to discuss whether we can make a final deal on TikTok because it’s a tremendous deal… The buyer will be a perfectly legal business, a business that truly loves America – they will be the owner of TikTok… I would prefer to benefit from it.”
The president also noted: “We are very close to making a deal. We may extend the agreement with China, but it will be an extension based on the current terms, which are quite favorable.”
The Trump administration said earlier this week that a deal to transfer TikTok’s ownership from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to U.S. control would be finalized during a phone call between the two presidents.
President Trump also stated, “We’ve reached a deal on TikTok,” as he departed for the UK on Tuesday for a state visit that concluded Thursday.
The transfer of ownership of the popular social media platform to the United States is intended to address U.S. national security concerns about the potential Chinese government access to TikTok user data.
“We also made a deal on XYZ, a company that our Country’s young people desperately want to save. They will be very happy! I will speak with President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains VERY STRONG!!!” Trump posted on the Truth Social platform on Monday after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent concluded talks with a Chinese trade delegation in Madrid.
Following the meeting, Bessant confirmed what he called a “framework agreement.” The negotiations were concluded before the September 17th deadline set by the United States. That deadline was initially established by legislation passed by Congress in 2024, but has been extended several times by Trump’s executive orders.
Failure to reach an agreement by that deadline would have resulted in a nationwide ban, forcing ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or potentially shut down the platform.
“This is a transaction between two private entities. But the commercial terms have been agreed,” Bessant told reporters.
Specific details have not been released.
U.S. officials have long worried that Beijing could access data on American citizens through TikTok and that the app could spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
Li Chenggang, China’s international trade negotiator and vice minister of commerce, also confirmed that the two countries had reached an agreement on a “basic framework consensus,” but he stressed that China “will never seek to reach any agreement at the expense of its principled position, corporate interests and international fairness and justice.” Li Chenggang made the above statement after the Madrid talks ended on Monday.
Trump has previously said he would be open to a purchase of TikTok by Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison. But he declined to comment when asked by reporters about a potential American acquisition of TikTok before leaving for the UK on Tuesday.
Ellison’s Oracle has an existing partnership with TikTok, and Oracle began hosting TikTok’s data in the United States in 2020. That year, the company reached an agreement with the Trump administration to acquire TikTok, but the deal was ultimately blocked.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday in Madrid that the negotiating team was “very focused on TikTok and making sure this is a deal that is fair to China” while also “fully respecting the national security concerns of the United States.”
Separately, Wang Jingtao, deputy director of the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission of China, told reporters in Madrid on Monday that the two sides had reached a consensus on licensing the use of intellectual property, including TikTok’s algorithms – one of the main points of contention in the agreement.
He said the two sides also agreed to have a partner responsible for handling the data and content security of American users.
For now, TikTok continues to operate normally for its 170 million American users. Tech giants like Apple, Google and Oracle continue to support the app, and the US Department of Justice has said it will not use the law to impose potentially hefty fines on them.
As of September, Trump’s personal TikTok account, @realdonaldtrump, had more than 15 million followers. He joined the platform in June 2024 during his presidential campaign.
