Trump Hails ‘Very Good’ Call With Xi: ‘I Appreciate The TikTok Approval’
(ZH) – Chinese President Xi Jinping has remarked on his ‘positive and pragmatic’ call with President Trump on Friday mid-morning (US local), saying also that he urged the US administration to avoid restrictive trade measures.
Also of note is that he conveyed to Trump that he respects the wishes of companies as they pursue a finalized agreement on the sale of the US operations of ByteDance, as part of a broader deal rolling back some tariffs and export restrictions, Xinhua writes. But the Chinese side suggests no breakthrough.
Via AP
Xi stipulated that the TikTok dispute should be resolved via ‘market rules’, according to state media – again, suggesting he’s open to the US plan.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has indicated that negotiators recently reached a framework agreement on the popular social media app’s ownership – however key questions remain even as talks appear to near toward a goal line.
Significantly, this is the first time the two have spoken directly since June, amid an ongoing standoff over trade restrictions centered on vital industries such as semiconductors and rare earths.
As for Trump’s initial reaction, he quickly posted on Truth social that “progress” was made on trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to an end.
He went so far as to hail the call as “a very good” one and that “[I] appreciate the TikTok approval.”
Trump confirmed the pair would soon meet in person at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in South Korea in November. He agreed “that I would go to China in the early part of next year, and that President Xi would, likewise, come to the United States at an appropriate time,” Trump expressed.
For background on how the TikTok deal is shaking out, as we previewed earlier, after months of intense debate the fate of TikTok’s US business appears to have been decided: according to the JPM, one of the world’s most valuable media properties will be controlled by an investor consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz under a framework the U.S. and China are finalizing as talks shift into high gear.
The arrangement which was discussed by U.S. and Chinese negotiators in Madrid this week, would create a new U.S. entity to operate the app, with US. investors holding a roughly 80% stake and Chinese shareholders owning the rest. This new company would also have an American-dominated board with one member designated by the U.S. government.
Existing users in the US would be asked to shift to a new app, which TikTok has built and is testing. More importantly, TikTok engineers will re-create a set of content-recommendation algorithms for the app, using technology licensed from TikTok’s parent ByteDance, although even the smallest deviation from the parent algo would likely doom the US-based app to failure as that particular highly addictive “secret sauce” is why the app is so popular. Oracle, a longtime TikTok partner, would handle user data at its facilities in Texas, the WSJ noted.
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