- Trump remains optimistic about a deal with China over TikTok — even after raising tariffs to 125%.
- He told reporters a deal with China over TikTok was “on the table very much.”
- This comes as he announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on all countries.
Shortly after announcing that he would raise tariffs on imports from China from 104% to 125%, President Donald Trump said a TikTok deal with China is still very much “on the table.”
“Obviously, I would say right now China is not exactly thrilled about signing it,” Trump said on Wednesday in the Oval Office, when asked where the TikTok divest-or-ban deal stood in the light of the new tariffs on China.
“We have a deal with some very good people, some very rich companies, that would do a great job with it, but we’re going to have to wait to see what’s going to happen with China,” he said.
“It’s on the table very much,” he added. “I think China’s going to want to do it, actually.”
Over the past few weeks, Trump has said numerous times that he’s inching closer to a deal with China over the sale of the social media platform, which the Chinese company ByteDance owns.
He has also said the tariffs are a negotiation strategy to get China to cave, and that he would reduce tariffs for the country if it agreed to a deal.
"We had a deal pretty much for TikTok — not a deal but pretty close — and then China changed the deal because of the tariffs," Trump said to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, a day after raising tariffs on China to 54%.
"If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they'd approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs," he added.
He extended TikTok's divest-or-ban deadline, which was supposed to end on April 5, by 75 days. This was the second time he extended the deadline, having done it once when he first entered office in January.
Trump's statements on China and TikTok come after he announced a big U-turn on his slew of reciprocal tariffs on 185 countries on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that he would pause the measures for 90 days.
Meanwhile, the White House said that all tariffs on countries except China would be temporarily lowered to 10%.
TikTok turmoil
US lawmakers have sought to force Bytedance to sell TikTok over concerns that the Chinese firm could be obliged by Beijing to hand over access to data from American users and footage posted on its app. The app temporarily went out of service in the US in January when it couldn't fulfill the deadline set by Congress, but Trump has shown that he thinks the app should be given a second chance to divest.
As for the president's history with tariffs on China, the strategy goes back to his first administration. In early 2018, he initially imposed import taxes of between 10% to 25% on select goods such as aluminum, solar panels, and steel.
The duties later expanded to cover another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and as Beijing retaliated with its own tariffs, both sides eventually signed a tense "Phase One" deal. It cooled some, but not most restrictions.
The Biden administration continued with Trump's pressure on China, largely targeting the electric vehicle industry there.
That's all spilled into the worsening tensions, which have continued to skyrocket since Trump imposed an extra 20% tariff on all Chinese goods in March. The White House has spent the last six weeks stacking additional duties to reach Wednesday's 125%.
China, increasingly vying to be a global competitor to the US, has continually responded by announcing its own quickly compounding taxes. On Tuesday, Beijing declared an 84% tariff on American goods in response to the US' previous announcement of 104% duties.
Representatives for Trump and the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.