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US President Donald Trump has said the future of TikTok depends on China’s actions, as the two countries’ trade negotiators prepared to buckle down for a second day of talks in Madrid.
The future of the short video app is a key agenda item on the latest round of trade discussions in Spain, which could pave the way for a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at New Jersey on Sunday.Credit: AP
Trump is widely expected to extend the Wednesday deadline for TikTok’s sale, making it the fourth reprieve given to China’s ByteDance since a US law passed during the Biden administration gave it until January 19, 2025 to divest or shut down the app.
“I may or may not, we’re negotiating TikTok right now,” Trump told reporters on Sunday, when asked about the app’s future.
“We may let it die, or we may, I don’t know, it depends, up to China. It doesn’t matter too much. I’d like to do it for the kids.”
The trade talks are the fourth round of negotiations to be held between the two sides, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, aimed at extending a truce stuck in Geneva in May.
Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to review troops at the Beijing military parade on September 3.Credit: AP
In Stockholm in July, they agreed to extend for 90 days a trade truce that sharply reduced triple-digit retaliatory tariffs on both sides and restarted the flow of rare-earth minerals from China to the United States. That deadline expires on November 10.
“We’ll start again in the morning,” Bessent told reporters as he left Spain’s central government palace after six hours of talks on Sunday.
The US Treasury department said in a statement the talks would focus on “national security, economic and trade issues of mutual interest, including TikTok and co-operating on money-laundering networks that threaten both the United States and China”.
China’s state media agency Xinhua said the two sides would discuss issues including “the US unilateral tariff measures, the abuse of export controls and TikTok”. TikTok had not featured in earlier rounds of trade discussions in Geneva, London and Stockholm.
TikTok users at the White House last year.Credit: AP
The talks are being held against the backdrop of a potential summit with Xi and Trump before both leaders attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation conference in Seoul on October 31.
China has formally invited Trump to Beijing, but insufficient progress on tariff discussions and US frustration at China’s alleged inaction on curbing fentanyl-related exports had reduced the odds of a leader summit, with sideline talks at APEC more likely, The Financial Times reported.
Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator and head of the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington, said she expected any major breakthroughs on the trade negotiations to be saved for a Trump-Xi summit.
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These may include a final resolution on TikTok, and a lifting of restrictions on Chinese purchases of American soybeans and reduction of fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese goods, she added.
“Frankly, I don’t think China is in any rush to do an agreement where they don’t get substantial concessions on export controls and lower tariffs, which are their key priorities,” she told Reuters.
“And I don’t see the United States in a position to make major concessions on either, unless there’s some breakthrough on its demands to China.”
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