Trump says talk with China’s Xi yielded progress, including on TikTok

President Trump mentioned a name with Chinese language chief Xi Jinping on Friday yielded progress on a spread of thorny bilateral points, together with the destiny of the brief video platform TikTok. He additionally mentioned he’ll meet Xi this fall and journey to China early subsequent yr.

“I simply accomplished a really productive name with President Xi of China. We made progress on many crucial points together with Commerce, Fentanyl, the necessity to convey the Battle between Russia and Ukraine to an finish, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” Trump wrote on social media.

China’s state information company Xinhua referred to as the dialog “pragmatic, optimistic and constructive.”

On TikTok, it cited Xi as saying Beijing “respects the desires of enterprises and is happy to see firms conduct enterprise negotiations on the idea of market guidelines and attain options that adjust to Chinese language legal guidelines and laws whereas balancing pursuits.”

But it surely added: “China hopes the U.S. will present an open, honest, and non-discriminatory enterprise atmosphere for Chinese language enterprises investing within the U.S.”

The Trump-Xi name follows talks final week between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese language Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid, the place the 2 sides introduced they’d agreed on a “framework” for dealing with possession of TikTok.

However as of Friday morning, neither facet had launched any particulars a couple of deal, together with which U.S. firms can be concerned, whether or not TikTok’s Beijing-based proprietor ByteDance would retain a stake, and who would management TikTok’s prized algorithm.

Negotiating a deal has been a prolonged, fraught course of. TikTok has mentioned the app has 170 million customers in the USA — roughly half the inhabitants — resulting in considerations amongst safety analysts and lawmakers that the Chinese language authorities may squeeze TikTok’s Beijing-based proprietor ByteDance for information on Individuals, or use the platform to affect them.

Congress handed a legislation final yr mandating that TikTok go offline within the U.S. until ByteDance offers up management. TikTok sued, arguing {that a} ban violates customers’ free speech rights, however the legislation was upheld in early January by the Supreme Courtroom.

Simply hours earlier than the ban went into impact on Jan. 19, TikTok briefly went offline in the USA. However on Inauguration Day, Trump issued an govt order pausing enforcement of the ban for 75 days, and lengthening a legal responsibility defend to firms that present back-end help to the video platform or host it in app shops. Trump has since given TikTok three extra extensions as his administration tried to dealer a deal for ByteDance to divest and U.S. firms to take management — a collection of reprieves that authorized consultants have questioned.

The destiny of TikTok turned more and more wrapped up in sweeping commerce talks between Washington and Beijing that embrace strategically thorny subjects like tariffs, microchips, uncommon earth minerals and China’s export of chemical compounds used to make the artificial opioid fentanyl.

The U.S. and China discovered themselves in a tariff spiral earlier this yr after President Trump’s announcement of “Liberation Day” tariffs. The 2 sides introduced a number of rounds of tit-for-tat retaliatory levies till U.S. tariffs on Chinese language imports hit 145%, and Chinese language tariffs on U.S. exports topped out at 125%, threatening to convey all commerce to a halt.

At a gathering in Geneva in Might, the 2 sides introduced a 90-day truce, lowered tariff charges and eased different commerce limitations together with deliveries of Chinese language uncommon earth minerals.

In August, Trump issued an govt order to maintain tariffs low whereas commerce negotiations proceed. At current, the usual U.S. tariff price on Chinese language items is 30%, whereas China’s price on American items stands at 10%.

There’s extra at stake than simply commerce, nevertheless.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Put up reported final week that China and the U.S. had been within the “closing stage” of negotiations for Trump to make a state go to to China, after Beijing despatched a proper state invitation early this month.

The leaders of the world’s high two economies spoke in June and agreed on an in-person assembly. If Trump travels to China, will probably be the primary go to to the nation by a U.S. president since 2017, when he went in his first time period.

For Xi, analysts say, a go to can be a symbolic win, demonstrating U.S. respect and underscoring his peer standing with Trump. It will additionally possible assist stabilize the bilateral relationship whereas bettering commerce relations and rhetoric, one thing Beijing has been eager to safe because it grapples with a sluggish economic system.