US, China open high-level talks ahead of Trump-Xi summit

Senior economic officials from China and the United States met in New York City on Sunday as part of a final push of talks ahead of a scheduled meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this week. The US delegation was led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, joined by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, while China was represented by Vice Premier He Lifeng. The session took place at JPMorgan Chase’s Manhattan headquarters. A central focus of the discussions was a fragile trade truce due to expire on November 10 that was agreed in Busan, South Korea, last November. That agreement previously capped US tariffs on Chinese goods at roughly 20 percent after earlier rounds of tariff escalation. Washington has also pressed Beijing over the steady supply of critical minerals, including rare-earth magnets, which are vital for sectors from automotive manufacturing to advanced semiconductors; US officials have said China’s performance on restoring flows under the truce has been insufficient. Artificial intelligence was added as a prominent topic, reflecting its growing role in bilateral economic and security concerns. US officials, including Bessent, signaled interest in discussing shared AI "guardrails" to mitigate common risks such as preventing powerful models from being acquired by malign non-state actors. The talks were expected to address both open- and closed-weight AI models, noting that some Chinese open-weight systems have drawn interest from US companies because of cost differences with US-developed closed systems. Observers and analysts cautioned that significant breakthroughs were unlikely ahead of the presidential summit. Analysts expected modest deliverables mainly designed to set a cooperative tone for the leaders’ meeting rather than resolved, long-term accords. The New York session is one in a series of meetings between Bessent, He and Greer over the past 16 months intended to narrow differences and produce areas of agreement before Trump and Xi meet.