By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will seek an agreement on Friday to help keep the video app TikTok online in the U.S. and ease tensions between two superpowers locked in a standoff over trade.
The agreement is at the top of the agenda alongside trade for the leaders’ first known call in three months, expected on Friday morning, U.S. officials said.
China has not confirmed plans for the call.
Trump and Xi’s effort to steady relations comes as the two governments have been discussing a potential in-person summit between Xi and Trump during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on October 30-November 1, Reuters has reported.
Beijing’s sign-off is one of the hurdles Trump needed to clear to keep TikTok open. Congress had ordered the app shut down for U.S. users by January 2025 if its U.S. assets weren’t sold by Chinese owner ByteDance.
Trump has declined to enforce the law while his administration looks for a new owner, but also because he worries a ban on the app would anger TikTok’s huge user base and disrupt political communications.
Trump and Xi Seek TikTok Win to Break US-China Gridlock
