President Donald Trump says Chinese leader Xi Jinping has approved a deal to give control of TikTok to a group of U.S. investors, avoiding a ban that would have affected up to 157 million American users.
After admitting on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “let him down” over Ukraine, Trump turned his attention to his Chinese counterpart on Friday, announcing that the pair would visit each other’s countries next year.
“I just completed a very productive call with President Xi of China. 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 wrote on Truth Social.
“I also agreed with President Xi that we would meet at the APEC Summit in South Korea, 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.
“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!”
Full details of the apparently approved agreement have not yet been released by the White House.
But such a deal caps off months of tense trade negotiations and avoids TikTok shutting down in the US.
Under a framework first reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, TikTok’s U.S. business would be controlled by an investor consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz.
Oracle is run by chief executive Larry Ellison, a Trump ally who briefly became the world’s richest man this month, with an estimated net worth of US$393 billion.
His son, David Ellison, is now the owner of CBS News after last month’s Paramount-Skydance mega-merger.
The phone call between Trump and Xi was the first time the pair had spoken since June.
In a bid to negotiate a trade deal with China, Trump also declined to approve more than $400 million in military aid to Taiwan, the island nation that China views as its own, according to the Washington Post.
The decision marked a significant shift in U.S. policy toward the self-governing island, and was not lost on observers who have long warned about China’s encroachment in the Indo-Pacific.
The relationship between China and the U.S. has otherwise been frosty in recent months due to the trade war between the two countries.
Trump also raged against Xi’s lavish military parade in Beijing this month. Guests included Putin and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un.
“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America,” he posted on Truth Social, as images of the trio beamed across the world.
But with Putin continuing to stall on Trump’s efforts for a peace deal with Ukraine—even after the US rolled out the red carpet for the Russian dictator in Alaska—the president has made no secret of his growing frustration with his Russian counterpart.
Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS
On Friday, Russian warplanes even violated the airspace of Estonia, yet another NATO member, weeks after its widely condemned incursion into Polish airspace.
“He’s let me down,” Trump said on Thursday during a joint press conference in London with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “He’s really let me down.”
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