(March 3): US and Chinese trade negotiators are slated to meet in mid-March, according to people familiar with the matter, signaling a planned summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is pushing ahead despite American strikes against Iran.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng are expected to convene in Paris at the end of next week to discuss business deals that could stem from the leaders’ meeting, said the people who requested anonymity to discuss plans that aren’t yet public. Both the timing and location of the meeting could still shift, the people added.
Among the issues that could be addressed are a possible Chinese purchase of Boeing Co planes, commitments to buy US soybeans and Taiwan, the self-ruled island China views as its own, some of the people said. The future of US fentanyl tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court could also be on the agenda, they added.
The US Treasury didn’t reply to requests for comment. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
US strikes on Iran and the killing of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stoked tensions with Beijing in recent days, complicating summit preparations. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called it “unacceptable to openly kill the leader of a sovereign country and institute regime change.” China also condemned the US use of force after the Trump administration snatched Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from his Caracas home in January.
Trump is traveling to China between March 31 to April 2 to meet with Xi, the first trip by an American president since his visit in 2017. Those dates announced by the US haven’t been confirmed by Beijing, which normally only releases details of the Chinese leader’s itinerary days in advance.
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The Bessent-He meeting marks the first sit-down between high-level US and Chinese officials since the Supreme Court dealt a blow to Trump’s global tariff strategy, forcing him to pursue more restrictive and complicated means to impose trade levies.
The expected time frame of the meeting means officials will only have about two weeks until the leaders’ summit to finalize any business deals and logistical arrangements of Trump’s visit.
Trump last month said he was looking forward to Xi putting on the “biggest display you’ve ever had in the history of China” for him, noting the Chinese leader treated him “so well” during his 2017 trip. On that visit, the US leader was granted a private tour of Beijing’s Forbidden City. Months later, Trump began his first trade war with the world’s second-largest economy.
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The He and Bessent meeting, along with broader economic talks, are being kept separate from other geopolitical aspects of the US-China relationship, according to a person familiar with the matter.
While neither Iran nor Venezuela are considered key trade or defense partners for China, Trump’s escalating campaign of regime change has fueled uncertainty about whether the US president could target a leader with closer links to Xi. The turmoil in the Middle East is also unfolding as the Chinese president heads into one of China’s most-important political weeks during which officials will unveil the economic growth goal for 2026.
Bessent and He have a history of bilateral negotiations. They met in Geneva last May to launch a series of talks that saw follow-on sessions in London, Stockholm, Madrid and Kuala Lumpur. That resulted in a truce under which Washington and Beijing lowered tariffs and export restrictions.
Negotiators most recently met informally on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland earlier this year.
Speaking from Davos in January, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the two sides could try to move past highly sensitive issues such as technology competition in talks ahead of Trump’s visit to China and try to reach an agreement on trade in non-sensitive sectors.
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