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() President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are expected to talk about the future of social media app TikTok and trade in a high-stakes call on Friday.
The phone call is expected to solidify a framework deal that would separate the app from ByteDance, its Chinese owner, avoiding a U.S. ban after months of extensions from the Trump administration.
Following a U.S.-China trade meeting in Madrid, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a deal outline had been reached but did not specify details.
“We are not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal,” Bessent said. “It’s between two private parties. But the commercial terms have been agreed upon.”
That same day, Trump told reporters outside the White House he and Xi would “confirm everything up” on Friday.
Who will own the app is still unknown, though sources told the Wall Street Journal that TikTok’s U.S. ownership could fall to an investor consortium including software giant Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Why does TikTok face a US ban?
The tentative TikTok deal has been in the works for months. A ban on the app was scheduled to go into effect in January under a Biden-era law requiring ByteDance to divest from the app or face a ban in the U.S.
Proponents of the ban cite national security risks and data privacy concerns as reasons for the shutdown.
That group previously included Trump, who tried to issue the first TikTok ban back in 2020, but has since reversed course and vowed to “save” the viral video app. Since taking office again, he has extended TikTok’s deadline four times.
US-China trade talks also on table
On Thursday, Trump said the administration was “very close to deals” on both TikTok and “also trade.”
Friday’s call would be the second with Xi since Trump returned to the White House and imposed sky-high tariffs on China, triggering a series of back-and-forth trade restrictions that strained ties between the world’s two largest economies.
As of September, both sides have paused their tariffs, but questions remain about the future of U.S.-China trade relations.
