(Corrects to remove ‘ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE’ from dateline)
(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he will start talking to China on Monday or Tuesday about a possible TikTok deal.
He said the United States “pretty much” has a deal on the sale of the TikTok short-video app.
“I think we’re gonna start Monday or Tuesday…talking to China, perhaps President Xi or one of his representatives, but we would we pretty much have a deal,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
Last month, Trump extended to September 17 a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of TikTok.
A deal had been in the works this spring to spin off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new U.S.-based firm, majority-owned and operated by U.S. investors, but it was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump said the United States will probably have to get a deal approved by China.
When asked how confident he was that China would agree to a deal, he said, “I’m not confident, but I think so. President Xi and I have a great relationship, and I think it’s good for them. I think the deal is good for China and it’s good for us.”
(Reporting by Jasper Ward and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Tom Hogue and Shri Navaratnam)
