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Donald Trump has signalled that Washington and Beijing have struck a deal on the future of the US operations of Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, adding that he would speak to President Xi Jinping later this week.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social network shortly before two days of US-China trade negotiations wrapped up in Madrid on Monday that the latest round of talks had “gone very well”.
In an apparent reference to TikTok, he wrote: “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.”
Trump said he would speak to Xi on Friday, adding: “The relationship remains a very strong one!!!”
Immediately after the talks, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who was leading the US delegation in the Spanish capital, said the two countries had reached a “framework” deal on TikTok to be approved by Trump and Xi on Friday.
The Trump administration has repeatedly extended a congressionally mandated deadline for TikTok owner ByteDance to divest its American operations of the video-sharing app or face a nationwide ban in the US. After three extensions since January, the latest deadline is Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters after the talks in Madrid, Bessent said the TikTok framework would put the app under “US-controlled ownership”. But he declined to provide more details, saying he did not want to “get ahead” of the call between Trump and Xi on Friday.
“We have a framework. They’ll have to confirm the deal,” Bessent said.
The trade negotiations in Madrid — which follow three previous rounds in Geneva, London and Stockholm — came as the US and China haggled over the terms of a possible meeting between Trump and Xi next month.
The Financial Times reported on Saturday that China had formally invited Trump to Beijing for a summit, but the White House had not responded.
The hesitation in Washington reflects a lack of progress in the talks on broader trade issues and fentanyl, and also a debate inside the Trump administration over whether the president should meet Xi in Beijing.
People familiar with the discussions said some officials were arguing that Trump should instead meet Xi on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to be held on October 31 in South Korea.
A resolution of the TikTok situation will remove one hurdle that has complicated negotiations. But the two sides have so far failed to narrow their differences on US demands that China cut the export of fentanyl ingredient chemicals before the US reduces tariffs related to fentanyl.
Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative who was also in Madrid, said one more deadline extension might be necessary to allow the TikTok deal to be finalised, but added that there would be no more rolling extensions.
While Bessent was still negotiating with Chinese delegation head vice-premier He Lifeng, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said it had found US chipmaker Nvidia in violation of the country’s antitrust law.
In a preliminary finding, SAMR said Nvidia had failed to fully comply with provisions outlined when it acquired Mellanox Technologies, an Israeli-US supplier of networking products, in 2020.
Two people with knowledge of the matter said SAMR reached its conclusion weeks ago, but released the statement on Monday in an attempt to give China greater leverage in the Madrid talks.
Asked if Nvidia was raised in the meeting, Bessent said: “We discussed the poor timing of the Nvidia investigation [on] the day of these talks.”
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