US President Donald Trump announced on Monday said the United States has reached a deal with a 'certain company' amid disputes with China over TikTok. In a post on 'Truth Social', he also said that he would be speaking to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Friday.
"The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL! It will be concluding shortly," he posted. "A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!! President DJT."
China, however, is yet to react to Trump's statement.
TikTok's popularity in US and concerns raised by American officials
TikTok, developed Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming's technological firm ByteDance, has been quite popular in the US, but American officials have repeatedly raised concerns over the app's Chinese origins and have pointed out that laws in China direct Chinese firms to hand over users' data to them.
The Congress had also approved a ban on TikTok, which became popular in the US, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, unless ByteDance sells its controlling stake. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre in February and March, nearly one-third of the people in the US support a ban on TikTok. Although this number was down from 50 per cent in March 2023.
However, Trump last month had said that he would extend the sale deadline. So far, the US President has extended the deadline thrice.
Notably, ahead of Trump's announcement, a top American official had said that though Washington and Beijing are close to reaching a deal with China on TikTok, several issues are still 'unresolved'. "I think on the TikTok deal itself, we are very close or we’ve resolved the issue," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said.