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Donald Trump held his first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since leaving the White House in 2021, and the two leaders discussed the fate of TikTok shortly before the Supreme Court upheld a bill banning the app in the United States.
The conversation between the leaders was the first in four years and came just two days before the law took effect, prompting the app store to stop talking to users.
“I just spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the phone. “This call was very good for both China and the United States,” Trump wrote on his Truth social media platform on Friday. “We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok and many other topics. “President Xi and I will do our best to make the world more peaceful and safer!”
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the two leaders agreed to “establish strategic communication channels to ensure regular contact on key issues of common interest.”
The Foreign Ministry painted a positive picture of the call but said Xi warned Trump that the United States should approach the “Taiwan issue” with “cautiousness.”
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has not ruled out using force to occupy the island.
Trump’s new national security team has been in contact with China, but the call between the Chinese leader and the incoming U.S. president marked the first time the two have spoken directly in four years.
This phone call came three days before President Trump’s inauguration ceremony, which Chinese Vice President Han Han will attend, and is the first time a high-ranking Chinese official has attended the U.S. inauguration ceremony.
The Financial Times reported last week that Xi Jinping would send a special envoy to the United States after Trump invited the Chinese leader to attend an event.
Some Trump advisers had hoped that the Chinese government would send Cai Qi, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, who is very close to Xi and occasionally wields far more power than Premier Han, who serves in a ceremonial role on Xi’s behalf.
The United States and China are paying attention to what kind of China policy President Trump will propose in the early days of his administration. He has threatened to impose tariffs on imports from China and several other countries, but it is unclear whether he will do so to gain leverage for negotiations with China, or whether he will initiate trade talks with China and apply tariffs if those negotiations are successful. . Didn’t succeed.
The conversation came two days before U.S. app stores pulled sales of TikTok, a video-sharing app downloaded by more than 170 million Americans. The law, upheld in a Supreme Court ruling Friday morning, bans the app unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells the platform.
President Trump has expressed support for TikTok, raising questions about whether his administration will prosecute companies that violate the law.
U.S.-China relations have fallen to their lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979 during the Biden administration over differences of opinion on everything from U.S. export restrictions to the Taiwan issue.
Biden and Xi Jinping have partially succeeded in stabilizing relations over the past year, but the two countries are still at odds over a variety of issues, including China’s support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
President Trump has nominated several China hardliners to serve in his administration, including Mike Waltz as US national security adviser and Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
This week, Treasury Secretary candidate Scott Bessent said he would pressure China to buy more U.S. agricultural products, such as corn and soybeans, that were part of the narrow trade deal Trump last signed with China.
Bessent said President Trump will also move aggressively on export controls that will impact China. China has frequently criticized the Biden administration for introducing strict export controls on artificial intelligence (AI)-related chips and technology to slow the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization.
But China experts are watching closely to see whether some of the tech billionaires around President Trump, including Elon Musk, may try to persuade the incoming president to take a less hardline stance on the issue.
Additional reporting by Joe Leahy in Beijing
