President Donald Trump appeared to suggest Friday that a deal to separate TikTok from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had been approved by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.

In a post on Truth Social after a call with Xi, Trump wrote, “The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval.” But he also said, “We made progress on many very important issues” including the approval of the TikTok deal. He did not elaborate on what the approval entailed.

Trump also said he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at a regional summit to take place at the end of October in South Korea and that he would visit China in the “early part of next year”.

In a Truth Social post, Trump also said the Chinese leader would come to the US “at an appropriate time”.

“Both look forward to meeting at APEC!,” Trump wrote, referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a grouping of 21 economies. China’s official news agency Xinhua said Xi, in the call, stressed the importance of the bilateral ties and urged the US side to avoid any unilateral trade restrictions.

Solution for TikTok

A readout of the call was vague, but Xi appeared to support a commercial solution to TikTok. The Chinese news agency reported that Xi said the Chinese government “respects the wishes of companies and welcomes them to conduct commercial negotiations based on market rules and reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and balance interests.”

TikTok’s future has been in limbo in the US since January, when a federal law took effect requiring the company to find a non-Chinese owner or face a ban in the United States. The law was intended to address national security concerns that the app’s ownership could give China a channel to spread propaganda or to collect sensitive data about Americans. Trump has extended the deadline four times.

ByteDance has for months been in talks to spin out the app’s American operations into a new company, and to bring on new US investors, like the software giant Oracle, to dilute its Chinese ownership and satisfy the law’s requirements.

The list of other potential investors has been in flux.

On Thursday, Trump added a detail: The US would be receiving a “tremendous fee” for putting the deal together. If that occurs, it would be the latest example of the government’s incursion into corporate dealmaking.

New York Times News Service