Bessent meets China's He Lifeng at JPMorgan, calls talks 'fulsome'
The meeting is meant to set the stage for a Trump-Xi summit, and follows weeks of high-level contact on trade and technology.
Published
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met China's Vice Premier He Lifeng at JPMorgan's headquarters on Sunday, describing the talks as "fulsome." Bessent said the discussions were meant to set the stage for a summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping.
The meeting was expected to cover artificial intelligence and rare earths, two of the main points of friction between Washington and Beijing. It follows weeks of high-level engagement between the two countries on trade and technology, including plans for tech executives to attend a Trump-Xi dinner.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Apple's Tim Cook and OpenAI's Sam Altman are set to attend that dinner, which comes as the US presses China over chip export limits, tariffs and rare earth supplies. Separately, the chair of the House China panel has pressed Trump to tighten AI chip export limits on Beijing, even as Chinese officials describe the relationship with Washington as "constructively stable."
Bessent's description of the talks as fulsome, and his framing of them as groundwork for a Trump-Xi summit, points to both sides working toward structured engagement on trade and technology rather than escalation. Set against recent Trump statements on tariffs, Greenland and media control, a thaw with China reads as marginally de-risking for equities, though the outcome will not be clear until an actual summit takes place.