Trump Loves TikTok—Does Xi?

It’s a good bet that President Donald Trump cares a lot more about TikTok than Chinese President Xi Jinping does. That suggests the Chinese leader will have some bargaining leverage over Trump in whatever discussions the two have about the fate of the ByteDance-owned app. You can just imagine Xi pressing for big concessions on tariffs or Chinese access to U.S. technology in exchange for letting a U.S. company buy TikTok.

On Wednesday night, in an interview with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, Trump reminded us (again) of his newfound fondness for TikTok. In doing so, he even downplayed the national security concerns about TikTok that led to the passage of last year’s ban-or-sell law, noting that China makes phones and other things that also present security risks for the U.S. That’s a reasonable point, but it’s also somewhat irrelevant to the issue at hand—how to comply with last year’s law.