By David Shepardson and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping's progress on a TikTok deal this week could help bolster talks to allow parent ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of the short video app, experts said.
The move forward, albeit a small one, comes eight months after a legal deadline passed for Chinese ownership of TikTok in the United States to end, and follows lengthy discussions about a sale.
Trump said on Truth Social on Friday
that he appreciated "the approval of the TikTok Deal" from Xi, after a call between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies.
Xi's statement did not mention an approval. It said "the Chinese government respects the will of firms and welcomes companies to conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules to reach a solution consistent with Chinese laws and regulations while balancing interests," according to the meeting summary in Xinhua state media.
China blocked a similar agreement on the app used by 170 million Americans in April during a trade dispute.
"Readouts from Washington and Beijing suggest the call between Trump and Xi went well, with words like 'positive' and 'constructive' being used by both sides to characterize the important bilateral conversation," said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. "While the leaders apparently blessed the TikTok deal, important details surrounding such matters as who would own and control the algorithm remain unclear."
Either way, months of work, at the very least, lie ahead. Trump this week extended the deadline to complete the divestiture to December 19. And lawmakers have raised concerns about reported details on the preliminary framework agreement reached earlier in the week in Madrid.
Congress had ordered the app shut down for U.S. users by January 2025 if its U.S. assets were not sold by Chinese owner ByteDance.
Trump has declined to enforce the law while his administration looks for a new owner, which Democrats say is illegal. He has said he is worried a ban on the app would anger TikTok's huge user base and disrupt political communications. He has largely downplayed national security concerns that motivated Congress to demand a Chinese divestiture.
"I like TikTok; it helped get me elected," Trump said during a press conference on Thursday. "TikTok has tremendous value. The United States has that value in its hand because we're the ones that have to approve it."
Scott Kennedy, head of the Chinese Business and Economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, "the contours of the conversation today and over the last few months better align with China's interests than U.S. interests."
He added, "we're talking about individual business deals. We're not talking about Chinese structural reforms."
Key questions about the deal remain. The precise ownership structure of the company is unclear, as is the amount of control China will retain, or whether Congress will approve.
The deal would transfer TikTok's U.S. assets to U.S. owners from ByteDance, Reuters has reported. Sources familiar with the deal said U.S. TikTok would still make use of ByteDance's algorithm.
That arrangement worries lawmakers concerned that Beijing could spy on Americans or conduct influence operations through the app. China has said there is no evidence of a national security threat posed by the app.
(Reporting by Chris Sanders, David Shepardson and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
