Bessent and He to Hold Talks on AI, Tariffs and Critical Minerals

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng are due to meet in New York on Sunday to prepare possible agreements on artificial intelligence, tariffs and critical minerals for a summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week.

The talks at JP Morgan Chase's Manhattan headquarters will also involve US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. They are scheduled to begin around 10:30 a.m. local time and are expected to last through the day.

Among the main items on the agenda are the future of a US-China trade truce that expires on November 10, the flow of Chinese rare-earth magnets and critical minerals that US officials consider insufficient, and possible safeguards for artificial intelligence following reports of significant security breaches involving AI models.

Analysts expect the two sides to settle for modest, confidence-building steps rather than a major breakthrough. Anna Ashton, a longtime China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence, said some deliverables are likely because a presidential summit is approaching, but added that the status quo is probably the best outcome both sides anticipate.

Several issues before the officials are carryovers from the two leaders' meeting in Beijing in May. These include efforts to lower tariffs on non-strategic goods, a Chinese commitment to raise purchases of US agricultural goods by $17 billion a year, and the purchase of more than 200 Boeing aircraft.

The meeting follows a pattern established over the past 16 months, in which the three officials gathered in European and Asian cities to prepare possible agreements for Trump and Xi. Those efforts produced the November 2025 truce in Busan, South Korea, which capped US tariffs imposed during Trump's second term at about 20% on Chinese goods after tit-for-tat escalation had pushed rates into triple digits on both sides.

The US Supreme Court later struck down the Trump tariffs invoked under a national emergencies law, including duties tied to fentanyl trafficking. The administration has been rebuilding them under new authorities, including restoring a 12.5% tariff on Chinese goods over forced labor allegations. It is also finalizing a separate tariff investigation aimed at curbing excess industrial capacity that it says is widespread in China.

Under the truce, China pledged to restore the flow of critical minerals to US and global users. A senior US official said on Friday that China's performance on that front has not been up to par and would be discussed ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.

The AI discussions carry weight because the US and China are the two major forces driving advanced AI development and global adoption of the technology. Rare earths are essential to manufacturing the advanced semiconductors that power AI.

Bessent said on Friday that he expects the talks to cover both open-weight and closed-weight models. Open-weight models have publicly accessible core elements that users can download and fine-tune for specific tasks. Chinese open-weight models are gaining popularity among US companies because they can be cheaper than closed-weight tools such as those developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and other US firms.

Bessent said the United States remains the leader in AI and that Washington is open to discussions on avoiding shared risks and preventing a bifurcation of the two systems. He has called for the US and China to agree on AI guard rails aimed at keeping powerful models out of the hands of malign non-state actors.

The two countries also agreed in May to launch discussions on reducing tariffs for non-strategic goods under a so-called Board of Trade mechanism, along with a similar forum to address specific investment issues. While the Trump administration has tightened restrictions on US investment in some Chinese industries, 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 to take part in economic and trade consultations ahead of the summit. The business delegation mirrors a group of US CEOs that Trump brought to Beijing in May, and was announced as Trump expressed openness to Chinese automakers building factories in the US. US auto industry groups on Friday urged Trump to maintain an effective ban on Chinese vehicle sales in the US on national security grounds.