President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping are set to ‘consummate’ the ‘final TikTok deal’ as talks over the social media app continue.
Trump has repeatedly extended the pause on the US ban of TikTok since it first came into effect at the start of the year.
The president appeared to have U-turned on his stance about the Chinese app, which he had previously called to be banned.
The leaders are set to meet in South Korea later this week after Trump arrived in Japan as part of his diplomatic tour of Asia.
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According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a ‘final deal on TikTok’ with China could be imminent.
The president had initially called for a ban on TikTok within the US during his first term in the Oval Office but has since had a change of heart on the matter.
In 2024, Congress passed a bill which former president Joe Biden then signed into law which would ban TikTok in the country unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold it.
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TikTok attempted to fight the ban, even taking the issue to the Supreme Court, although the court sided with the government’s stance on the matter, citing that TikTok could pose a national security threat.
US officials have argued in the past that the Chinese government could have the potential to use the app in order to spread propaganda to the US population or possible use information gathered on its users to blackmail them, although evidence on how this could be done hasn’t been shared publicly.
The ban came into effect on January 19 of this year, just one day before Trump was inaugurated for his second term.
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Less than 24 hours later, TikTok was back and Trump signed executive orders to extend the deadline of the app’s sale.
After his election campaign last year, Trump praised the app for helping him to reach young voters.
Speaking to a crowd at AmericaFest, which was organized by the conservative group Turning Point, the president said: “I think we’re going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok, and we had a great response with billions of views, billions and billions of views.
“They brought me a chart, and it was a record, and it was so beautiful to see, and as I looked at it, I said, ‘maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while’.”