{"id":1551,"date":"2026-09-20T14:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T06:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/20\/us-treasurys-bessent-chinas-he-to-launch-talks-on-ai-trade-critical-minerals\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T14:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T06:05:11","slug":"us-treasurys-bessent-chinas-he-to-launch-talks-on-ai-trade-critical-minerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/20\/us-treasurys-bessent-chinas-he-to-launch-talks-on-ai-trade-critical-minerals\/","title":{"rendered":"US Treasury’s Bessent, China’s He to launch talks on AI, trade, critical minerals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By David Lawder and Antoni Slodkowski <\/p>\n

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng are set to meet on Sunday to try to tee up potential agreements on AI, tariffs and critical minerals for a high-stakes Washington summit this week between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. <\/p>\n

The meetings at \u200cJP Morgan Chase’s headquarters in Manhattan, which also will include US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, are due to start at about 10:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) and are expected to run all day. <\/p>\n

Key \u200ctopics will be the status of a US-China trade truce that is set to expire on November 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 \u200bsecurity breaches involving AI models. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

“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 longtime China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence. “I think status quo is probably both sides’ general best expectation.” <\/p>\n

Many of the issues that He, Bessent and Greer will have to work \u200cthrough for Trump and Xi are holdovers from the two leaders’ meeting \u2060in 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 $17 billion a year and to purchase more than 200 Boeing aircraft. <\/p>\n

The Bessent-He-Greer meeting follows a pattern set over the past 16 months, in which the three officials met \u2060in 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% on Chinese goods after tit-for-tat escalation had brought them to triple-digit levels on both sides. <\/p>\n

The US Supreme Court later struck down the Trump tariffs that were invoked under a national emergencies law, including duties related to fentanyl \u200btrafficking. <\/p>\n

Trump’s \u200badministration has been rebuilding them under new authorities, including restoring a 12.5% tariff on Chinese goods over forced labor \u200ballegations. It is finalizing a separate tariff investigation aimed at curbing excess industrial capacity \u200cthat it says is rampant in China. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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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 Friday 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. <\/p>\n

NEW TALKS ON AI <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Bessent said on Friday 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. <\/p>\n

Chinese open-weight models are becoming more popular \u200cwith US companies because they can be cheaper than closed-weight AI tools such as those developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and \u200bother US companies. <\/p>\n

“The United States remains the leader in AI. And we are open to discussions on avoiding shared risks \u200band avoiding bifurcation of our two systems,” Bessent said in a statement regarding the China talks. <\/p>\n

Bessent \u200bhas 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. <\/p>\n

TARIFF REDUCTIONS, INVESTMENT <\/p>\n

The \u200cUS and China also agreed in May to launch discussions to reduce tariffs \u200bfor non-strategic goods under a so-called “Board of Trade” mechanism along \u200bwith a similar forum to deal with specific investment issues. <\/p>\n

While the Trump administration has tightened restrictions on US companies investing in some industries in China, Reuters reported on Friday 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. <\/p>\n

China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that He would \u200balso lead a delegation of Chinese companies to the US that would \u200cparticipate in economic and trade consultations ahead of the summit. <\/p>\n

The business delegation, which mirrors a group of US CEOs that Trump brought to Beijing in May, was announced as Trump \u200bexpressed openness to Chinese automakers building US factories. US auto industry groups on Friday urged Trump to maintain an effective ban on Chinese vehicle sales in the US on \u200bnational security grounds. <\/p>\n

(Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Courtney Rozen in Washington; Editing by Paul Simao) <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Lawder and Antoni Slodkowski NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng are set to meet on Sunday to try to tee up potential agreements on AI, tariffs and critical minerals for a high-stakes Washington summit this week between US President Donald Trump and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-stocks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btbitcoin.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}