Trump, Xi Set to Finalize Long-Awaited TikTok Deal Today

Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1533 EAT on Friday 19 September 2025

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to finalize a long-awaited deal on Friday that would see the sale of most of TikTok’s U.S. assets to American investors.

If confirmed, the agreement would mark the culmination of a yearslong effort that began during Trump’s first term, amid growing concerns over data security and Chinese tech influence. The TikTok negotiations have since become a key point of leverage in broader U.S.-China talks, shaping the trajectory of trade and technology relations between the two global powers.

On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Li Chenggang announced that negotiators from both countries had reached a framework agreement for the sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets. The deal was struck during bilateral talks held in Madrid and would allow the popular video-sharing app to continue operating in the United States.

The proposed agreement comes in response to a bipartisan law signed by former President Joe Biden, which went into effect on January 19. The legislation mandated a ban on TikTok unless the company transferred at least 80% of its U.S. operations to American ownership.

While the law formally triggered a path to a nationwide ban, President Donald Trump — who returned to office earlier this year — repeatedly paused enforcement as his administration pursued a negotiated solution with Beijing. The framework deal now under discussion appears to be the result of that diplomatic effort.

While neither Washington nor Beijing has publicly disclosed the terms of the proposed TikTok agreement—pending finalization—sources familiar with the framework say the deal would involve substantial investments from several U.S.-based venture capital firms, private equity funds, and technology companies.

According to those sources, the majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations would be held by American investors, including Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake. Chinese stakeholders would retain a minority interest, capped at 20% of the restructured company.

The arrangement is designed to satisfy U.S. national security concerns while preserving TikTok’s continued operation in the American market.

The framework agreement on TikTok is seen as a critical step toward a long-anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. officials said Monday following the announcement of the preliminary deal.

According to the officials, both sides have been working for months to arrange a bilateral summit, but such a meeting would not have been possible without a resolution to the TikTok dispute. With the framework now in place, the likelihood of a Trump-Xi meeting has significantly increased, they said.

Officials added that the two leaders are expected to meet during Trump’s planned visit to Asia at the end of October, provided the agreement is finalized in the coming weeks.

Until recently, China had been reluctant to permit ByteDance to relinquish its stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations. However, as trade tensions with the United States intensified this spring and continued through the summer, Beijing appears to have reconsidered its position.

The shift comes amid a broader deterioration in U.S.-China economic relations, punctuated by China’s announcement on Monday that American chipmaker Nvidia had violated its antitrust laws — a move widely seen as a retaliatory gesture.

Faced with mounting pressure and the prospect of broader economic fallout, Chinese authorities now appear more willing to engage, with officials signaling that they are prepared to support a negotiated outcome on TikTok.

TikTok briefly went offline in the United States on January 18, just one day before the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act took effect. The blackout came amid mounting uncertainty over the app’s future, with U.S. companies unsure whether hosting TikTok would expose them to legal risk.

However, on January 19 — one day before beginning his second term — President Donald Trump announced he would issue an executive action ensuring that American companies would not be penalized for continuing to host TikTok on their app stores or servers.

The law grants the president broad discretion in how to enforce the ban, and Trump has since delayed implementation four times, most recently pushing the deadline to mid-December.

Critics argue that the repeated delays undermine the intent of Congress, which passed the legislation with bipartisan support to compel a swift divestment or ban of apps deemed controlled by foreign adversaries.

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