President Trump said he will begin talks with China in coming days on the sale of TikTok.
“We essentially have an agreement,” Trump mentioned to reporters late Friday. “I believe we’ll begin discussions with China on Monday or Tuesday, probably involving President Xi [Jinping] or one of his delegates, but we essentially have an agreement.”
The White House will likely need China to approve such a deal regarding the video-sharing, social-media platform, added the president.
Trump made this statement following a report by The Post’s Charles Gasparino earlier on Friday. The report highlighted that the president had secured a buyer for the contentious Chinese-owned short-video platform, yet his main issue lies with the seller.
Sources indicate that Beijing is utilizing TikTok as a strategic element in the US-China trade talks, aware that Trump wishes for the app to continue its operations in the United States.
There will be no sale of TikTok to American investors — a move needed to conform to a US law — until the Chinese president is confident he has extracted as much as he can in terms of a favorable trade deal with the White House, added the sources.
Trump last month signed an executive order to extend the deadline to Sept. 17 for TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok’s assets in the United States.
It was the third such extension since Trump returned to the White House in January.
In April, a group of wealthy investors and tech honchos were poised to place a bid with China to buy the app’s US-based operations until Trump launched a trade war against Beijing, hitting China with 145% tariffs on imported goods.
That number has since been lowered as both sides negotiate other trade issues as part of a broader deal.
When asked how confident he is that China will agree to a deal, the president said, “I’m not confident, but I think so. President Xi and I have a great relationship, and I think it’s good for them. I think the deal is good for China, and it’s good for us.”
Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to ban TikTok if ByteDance wouldn’t divest — via a 79-18 Senate vote and a 360-58 House landslide. Then-President Joe Biden signed the act.
Trump halted the implementation of the ban on his first day in office — issuing an initial 75-day extension.
Trump was skeptical of TikTok as a Chinese data-collection front during his first term, but came out against the ban after most major US-owned social media and content platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube, banned him following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
