Bessent, He Lifeng launch New York talks on trade, AI and Iran ahead of Trump-Xi summit
US, China are the two major forces driving development of advanced AI tools and the global adoption of the technology
[NEW YORK] US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng arrived in New York on Sunday (Sep 20) for a meeting aimed at teeing up potential agreements on AI, tariffs and critical minerals for a high-stakes Sep 24 summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The meetings at JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters in Manhattan, which will also include US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, started shortly after Bessent’s arrival around 10.30 am (1430 GMT) and were expected to run all day.
Before heading into the meeting, Bessent told reporters that he looked forward to “focused, fulsome and constructive talks” that would pave the way for the coming Trump-Xi summit in Washington.
Key topics will be the status of a US-China trade truce that is set to expire on Nov 10, flows of Chinese rare-earth magnets and critical minerals that US officials say are insufficient and potential guard rails for artificial intelligence after reports of key security breaches involving AI models. The most likely outcome, analysts say, would be for Washington and Beijing to agree on small steps to show they are continuing to avoid escalating tensions in a delicate trade relationship that has major consequences for the global economy.
“I think there will be some show of deliverables because of the fact that it’s a presidential summit coming, but I don’t feel like we’re on the verge of some sort of breakthrough,” said Anna Ashton, a China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence. “I think status quo is probably both sides’ general best expectation.”
Many of the issues that He, Bessent and Greer will have to work through for Trump and Xi are holdovers from the two leaders’ meeting in Beijing in May, including an effort on both sides to cut tariffs on non-strategic goods and Chinese pledges to increase purchases of US agricultural goods by US$17 billion a year and to purchase more than 200 Boeing aircraft.
The Bessent-He-Greer meeting follows a pattern set over the past 16 months, in which the three officials met in European and Asian cities to tee up potential agreements for Trump and Xi.
These efforts included the November 2025 truce reached in Busan, South Korea, which capped US tariffs imposed during Trump’s second term in office at about 20 per cent on Chinese goods after tit-for-tat escalation had brought them to triple-digit levels on both sides.
The US Supreme Court later struck down the Trump tariffs that were invoked under a national emergencies law, including duties related to fentanyl trafficking.
Trump’s administration has been rebuilding them under new authorities, including restoring a 12.5 per cent tariff on Chinese goods over forced labour allegations. It is finalising a separate tariff investigation aimed at curbing excess industrial capacity that it says is rampant in China.
Under that truce, China promised to restore the flow of critical minerals to US and global users. However, a senior US official told reporters on Sep 18 that China’s performance on that front “has not been up to par” and would be a topic for discussion ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.
New talks on AI
The Bessent-He discussions on AI are significant because the US and China are the two major forces driving development of advanced AI tools and the global adoption of the technology. Rare earths play a crucial role in the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor technology powering AI.
Bessent said on Sep 18 he expects the discussions to cover “both open- and closed-weight models.” Open-weight models are AI systems with publicly accessible core elements where users can download and fine-tune them for specific tasks.
Chinese open-weight models are becoming more popular with US companies because they can be cheaper than closed-weight AI tools such as those developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and other US companies.
“The United States remains the leader in AI. And we are open to discussions on avoiding shared risks and avoiding bifurcation of our two systems,” Bessent said in a statement regarding the China talks.
Bessent has called for the US and China to agree on AI “guardrails” aimed at keeping powerful models out of the hands of malign non-state actors.
Trump and Xi must reach a deal that covers AI safety, said US Representative Ro Khanna, the ranking Democrat on the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party.
“The first ask is of Trump and Xi Jinping to come up with an international agreement, and two of the core principles should be one banning any self-improving AI, recursive self-improving AI. … The second is to have safeguards so that AI can’t be misused by people for biological nuclear weapons,” Khanna said on Sunday, speaking on a CBS programme.
Tariff reductions, investment
The US and China also agreed in May to launch discussions to reduce tariffs for non-strategic goods under a so-called “Board of Trade” mechanism along with a similar forum to deal with specific investment issues.
While the Trump administration has tightened restrictions on US companies investing in some industries in China, Reuters reported on Sep 18 that it is working on rules that would likely allow US pharmaceutical firms to invest in promising Chinese drugs and strike licensing deals for them.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that He would also lead a delegation of Chinese companies to the US that would participate in economic and trade consultations ahead of the summit.
The business delegation, which mirrors a group of US CEOs that Trump brought to Beijing in May, was announced as Trump expressed openness to Chinese automakers building US factories.
US auto industry groups on Sep 18 urged Trump to maintain an effective ban on Chinese vehicle sales in the US on national security grounds. REUTERS
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