US, China begin trade talks in New York ahead of Trump-Xi summit

Nectar Gan, Yash Roy and Alicia Diaz, Bloomberg News on Sep 20, 2026

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U.S. and Chinese officials began talks in New York to lay the groundwork for a high-profile summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to maintain — and potentially extend — a fragile trade truce.

The negotiators, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng, are expected to discuss issues spanning trade and investment, artificial intelligence and the Iran war.

Just after 10 a.m. New York time, He, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Li Chenggang, China’s international trade negotiator, entered the JPMorgan Chase & Co. offices in midtown Manhattan where the talks are being held.

As he arrived soon after 10:30 a.m., Bessent told reporters that he’s looking forward to a constructive dialogue between the two nations.

Bessent and He last met face-to-face near Seoul roughly four months ago, just days before Trump visited Beijing in May. On Thursday, Trump will host Xi at the White House in the Chinese leader’s first state visit to Washington in more than a decade.

High on the agenda is a trade truce that saw both sides lowered tariffs and export restrictions, which is set to expire in November.

An announcement of new U.S. tariffs over allegations of trading partners’ excess manufacturing capacity has been delayed until after the meeting, according to people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. and China have been working to reduce levies on American energy and agricultural products, Bloomberg reported earlier, part of a broader initiative to ease barriers on $30 billion worth of products from each side under the Board of Trade mechanism launched earlier this year.

Since the two leaders last met in May, AI has emerged as a new flash point between the U.S. and China.

Trump administration officials, US security agencies and Silicon Valley’s AI giants alike have accused Chinese firms of systematically distilling from American models to build their own products, which are fast narrowing the gap with the U.S. frontier.

AI discussions

Beijing has rejected such accusations as groundless and vowed to retaliate if Washington moves to target Chinese AI companies.

Chinese officials have also pushed back on calls from U.S. tech leaders to pace AI development in the interest of safety, with the country’s foreign ministry dismissing such moves as “fear-mongering.”

Bessent, who recently warned that “there is no day after tomorrow” if China wins the AI race, said in a statement to Axios last week that “we are open to discussions on avoiding shared risks and avoiding bifurcation of our two systems.”

Michael Kratsios, Trump’s science and technology adviser at the White House, said on Fox News Sunday that “the key thing that we want to talk to them about is avoiding shared risks, and that’s something that I think we can have a fruitful conversation on.”

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(With assistance from Stephen Engle and Sabrina Mao.)

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