Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Dan Kitwoodnicholas Kamm | Afp | Getty Images
President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday began a much-anticipated call aimed at finalizing a deal to keep TikTok from going dark in the U.S.
The call began at 8 a.m. ET, a White House official told CNBC.
Washington and Beijing agreed on a deal “framework” for the social media platform on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said following talks between the two economic superpowers in Madrid.
ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, has faced an ultimatum under a federal law requiring it to either divest the platform’s American business or be shut down in the U.S.
But Trump, a fan of TikTok who credited it with helping him win the 2024 presidential election, has repeatedly extended the deadline. On Tuesday, he signed an executive order delaying it until Dec. 16.
During a state visit to the United Kingdom on Thursday, Trump said that he was eager to keep TikTok alive in the U.S.
“We’re speaking to President Xi on Friday to see if we can finalize something on Tiktok, because there is tremendous value, and I hate to give away value, but I like Tiktok,” Trump said at Chequers, the British prime minister’s weekend residence in Aylesbury, England.
Lawmakers of both parties had backed the TikTok legislation, which aimed to protect Americans from social media apps being used for surveillance or manipulation purposes by foreign adversaries.
Former President Joe Biden signed the bill into law in April 2024, with ByteDance initially facing a Jan. 19 deadline to divest or face a U.S. ban.
But Trump extended that deadline on his first day in office, and he has done so three more times since then.
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