WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signaled a potential end to the tit-for-tat tariff hikes between the U.S. and China that shocked markets, and that a deal over the fate of social media platform TikTok may have to wait.

"I don't want them to go higher because at a certain point you make it where people don't buy," Trump told reporters about tariffs at the White House.

Speaking with reporters, Trump repeatedly declined to specify the nature of talks between the countries or whether they directly included Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump has repeatedly extended a legal deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of the short video app used by 170 million Americans. On Thursday, he said a spin-off deal would likely wait until the trade issue is settled. "We have a deal for TikTok, but it'll be subject to China so we'll just delay the deal 'til this thing works out one way or the other," Trump said.