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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Trump says progress made with Xi to finalize a long-sought TikTok deal | |
By Clare Duffy, CNN | |
Updated: | |
4:06 PM EDT, Fri September 19, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
President Donald Trump said at the conclusion of a call with China’s | |
leader Xi Jinping Friday morning that they had made progress to that | |
would sell most of TikTok’s US assets to . The deal would conclude a | |
yearslong effort that began during Trump’s first term and became a | |
key factor in broader negotiations between the United States and China | |
in recent months. | |
“We made progress on many very important issues including Trade, | |
Fentanyl, the need to bring the War between Russia and Ukraine to an | |
end, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” Trump said in a on Truth | |
Social. “The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by | |
phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting | |
at APEC!” | |
Xinhua, a Chinese state media service, reported that Xi told Trump | |
“the Chinese government respects corporate decisions and welcomes | |
business negotiations that follow market rules and produce solutions | |
consistent with Chinese laws and balanced interests.” | |
CNN has asked the White House whether a TikTok deal has been approved. | |
“We thank President Xi Jinping and President Donald J. Trump for | |
their efforts to preserve TikTok in the United States,” a ByteDance | |
spokesperson said in a statement following the call. “ByteDance will | |
work in accordance with applicable laws to ensure TikTok remains | |
available to American users through TikTok U.S.” | |
On Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Li Chenggang, | |
China’s vice minister of commerce, said that a framework TikTok sale | |
agreement had been reached during negotiations held in Madrid between | |
diplomats from both countries. The proposal would allow TikTok to | |
remain operational in the United States. Former President Joe Biden | |
signed a bipartisan bill passed by Congress that went into effect on | |
January 19 banning TikTok unless it ceded control of at least 80% of | |
its assets to US operators. But Trump multiple times paused the ban as | |
his administration sought a sale via a deal with China. | |
Neither side has disclosed terms of the agreement. But sources familiar | |
with the framework said the proposal would involve investments from a | |
number of US-based venture capital firms, private equity funds and tech | |
companies. Among the investors, who would hold the majority stake in | |
the company, are Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz and Silver Lake, the | |
sources said. Chinese investors would own the remaining 20% of the | |
company. | |
The new consortium would be operated by a majority-US board, including | |
a member appointed by the Trump administration. on details of the | |
framework. | |
“Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they | |
are announced by this administration,” a senior White House official | |
told CNN. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have not responded to | |
CNN’s requests for comment about the status of a deal. | |
One big question about the deal remains: What will happen to TikTok’s | |
algorithm? The algorithm, which determines what users see on their | |
“For You” feeds, is considered the special sauce that has made the | |
app so popular. China has long indicated that it would not allow the | |
algorithm to be sold as part of a deal. But the US law prohibits “any | |
cooperation” between the possible new, American entity and | |
Chinese-based ByteDance with respect to the algorithm — potentially | |
leaving the new owners to try to recreate the technology themselves, | |
something TikTok’s rivals have long struggled to do. | |
The agreement and conversation was a precursor to a Trump-Xi meeting | |
that both sides have sought for months, US officials said Monday after | |
the framework plan was announced. Without a TikTok deal in place, a | |
meeting between Trump and Xi wouldn’t be possible, US officials said. | |
Trump on Friday said the two leaders will meet at the upcoming APEC | |
summit in South Korea next month, and Trump will visit China early next | |
year. The leaders also agreed that Xi would come to the United States | |
“at the appropriate time,” Trump said. | |
China, up until this point, has been hesitant to allow ByteDance to | |
give up its US stake. But as trade tensions between the companies | |
reached an inflection point in the spring and continued throughout the | |
summer – evidenced by China’s announcement Monday that – Chinese | |
authorities apparently decided that it should play ball. | |
The bulk of the deal — organizing an American-led investor group to | |
buy TikTok’s US assets – had been completed by April, Bessent said | |
Monday. But then Trump’s massive “Liberation Day” tariffs went | |
into effect, effectively putting an embargo on all Chinese goods, and | |
TikTok talks entered a standstill. After tariffs were brought lower and | |
talks between the US and China resumed, Bessent said both Trump and Xi | |
expressed interest in re-engaging on TikTok discussions. But key | |
details needed to be ironed out, including addressing US national | |
security concerns and China’s willingness to approve the deal. | |
TikTok in the United States on January 18, the day before the Foreign | |
Adversary Controlled Applications Act went into effect. But on January | |
19, one day before Trump took office for his second term, he said he | |
would sign an executive action upon the beginning of his term that | |
would ensure US companies would not be punished for hosting TikTok on | |
their app stores or servers. | |
The law gives the president broad discretion on how to enforce the ban, | |
and Trump has pushed back the enforcement date four times — most | |
recently to mid-December. But critics have said Trump’s extensions | |
thwarted the will of Congress. | |
Trump toward the end of his first term had advocated for banning TikTok | |
— a policy he never got passed but which Biden eventually supported | |
and signed into law. But Trump’s opinion eventually changed after he | |
viewed the social media app as contributing to his election victory in | |
2024. | |
TikTok boasts around 170 million US users, many of them young people | |
— a contingent that offered significantly more support to the | |
Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election than that | |
segment of the population has in recent years. Trump has repeatedly , | |
but no breakthrough emerged until Monday. | |
CNN’s Yong Xiong, Betsy Klein, Alayna Treene and Kevin Liptak | |
contributed to this report. | |
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