United States President Donald Trump announced he would begin negotiating with China on Monday or Tuesday about a potential agreement regarding the popular video-sharing app TikTok.
The US “pretty much” has a deal on the sale of the TikTok short-video application, he said.
“I believe we’re going to start Monday or Tuesday [.] speaking with China, either President Xi Jinping or one of his representatives, but we would essentially have a deal,” Trump said on Air Force One.
Trump last month extended until September 17 a deadline for ByteDance, based in China, to sell US assets of TikTok.
A transaction was under consideration this spring to spin off TikTok’s US operations into a new US-headquartered company, dominated and controlled by US investors, but it was held in abeyance after China signaled it would not sign off on it following Trump’s threats of drastic tariffs on Chinese imports.
Trump declared that the US will likely have to obtain an agreement approved by China.
In response to a question about how sure he was that China would sign a deal, he replied, “I’m not confident, but I think so.”
“President Xi and I get along very well, and I think it’s good for them. I believe the deal is good for China and it’s good for us.”
Last week, while being interviewed by the Fox News, President Trump had stated that he had found a buyer for the TikTok.
The US president declared the agreement he is working on would likely require the approval of China to proceed and forecasted that the President Xi would surely approve it.
