High-Stakes Phone Call Could Avert U.S. Ban on Social Media Giant
President Donald Trump is set to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Friday in a high-stakes phone call expected to finalize a deal that would separate the social media app TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
The call follows months of negotiations and repeated deadline extensions from the Trump administration, which has threatened a U.S. ban on the popular app.
The potential agreement would see TikTok’s U.S. operations owned by a consortium of American investors, including software firm Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
The move is aimed at addressing national security and data privacy concerns raised by U.S. officials, who feared that user data could be accessed by the Chinese government.
“We are not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said following a U.S.-China trade meeting in Madrid, adding that the framework for the agreement has been reached between the private parties.
The TikTok issue is not the only item on the agenda. The call is also expected to address the ongoing trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump, who has imposed a series of tariffs on Chinese goods since returning to office, stated that the administration is “very close to deals” on both TikTok and trade. While both sides have paused their tariffs, the future of U.S.-China trade relations remains uncertain.
This would be the second phone call between Trump and Xi since the former’s return to the White House. The previous administration, under President Biden, had also pursued a ban on TikTok, which was scheduled to go into effect in January of this year. Trump, who initially sought to ban the app in 2020, has since reversed his stance, vowing to “save” the platform.
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