US and Chinese officials have opened high-level talks in New York aimed at easing tensions ahead of a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this week.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng began discussions at JPMorgan Chase’s Manhattan headquarters on Sunday. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is also taking part.
The negotiations are intended to clear the way for possible agreements covering trade, artificial intelligence and critical minerals, four days before Mr Trump is due to host the Chinese president at the White House.
Mr Bessent said he expected “focused, fulsome and constructive talks” that would prepare the ground for the leaders’ meeting.
Trade truce and critical minerals
A key issue is a fragile US-China trade truce due to expire on November 10. The agreement, reached in Busan, South Korea, last November, capped US tariffs on Chinese goods at about 20 per cent after retaliatory measures briefly pushed duties into triple digits.
Washington is also pressing Beijing over supplies of rare-earth magnets and other critical minerals used in industries including car manufacturing and advanced semiconductors.
China pledged to restore the flow of those materials under last year’s agreement. But a senior US official said on Friday that Beijing’s performance had “not been up to par”.
Artificial intelligence joins US-China talks
Artificial intelligence is expected to feature prominently in the discussions, adding a newer area of dispute to negotiations traditionally focused on trade.
Mr Bessent has said the two countries could consider safeguards to address shared risks, including preventing powerful AI models from reaching malign non-state actors. Talks are expected to cover both open-weight and closed-weight systems.
Chinese open-weight models have attracted growing interest from US companies, partly because they can be cheaper than closed systems developed by firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
“The United States remains the leader in AI,” Mr Bessent said. “And we are open to discussions on avoiding shared risks and avoiding bifurcation of our two systems.”
Iran may provide another source of friction. China remains one of Tehran’s most important economic partners and buys much of its oil, making Beijing a target of US efforts to increase economic pressure on Iran.
Expectations remain limited
Despite the broad agenda, analysts have cautioned against expecting a major breakthrough from the meetings.
Anna Ashton, a China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence, said there could be some deliverables ahead of the presidential summit but that neither side appeared to be approaching a sweeping agreement.
“I think status quo is probably both sides’ general best expectation,” she said.
Former US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell said the immediate objective could instead be to prevent tensions from escalating.
“One of the only things we can hope for in the short term is a truce, and that this will likely continue through the remainder of this year,” Mr Campbell said.
Sunday’s meeting forms part of a series of discussions between Mr Bessent, Mr He and Mr Greer over the past 16 months, as Washington and Beijing have sought areas of agreement before Mr Trump and Mr Xi meet face to face.
