US Treasury’s Bessent to meet Chinese vice-premier in France ahead of Trump-Xi summit

WASHINGTON - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng in France from March 15 to 16, the Treasury Department said on March 12 as the two sides prepare for US President Donald Trump to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing at the end of March.

“This weekend, I will again meet with Vice-Premier He Lifeng to continue the US-China trade and economic dialogue in Paris, France,” Mr Bessent said in a post on X.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also will participate in the meetings, his office said.

The Treasury and USTR provided few details about their objectives for the Paris meetings, the latest in a series of dialogues in European cities in recent months between Mr Bessent, Mr Greer, Mr He and Chinese trade negotiator Li Chenggang.

The four officials in 2025 negotiated a US-China trade truce after Mr Trump imposed sweeping new tariffs on Chinese imports that prompted tit-for-tat escalation and draconian Chinese export controls on rare earth minerals and magnets that threatened to bring US high-tech industries to a standstill.

The truce brought Mr Trump’s new emergency tariff rate down to about 20 per cent for Chinese goods and partially restored the rare earths supplies.

It was largely extended until November 2026 after the leaders met in 2025 in South Korea, but the US Supreme Court has since ruled Mr Trump’s emergency tariffs illegal.

The meeting may provide some clarity on the path forward for tariffs, as the US has reimposed a new 10 per cent tariff on global imports under a law meant to resolve balance of payments issues.

More trade balance

Mr Greer has spoken in recent weeks about the need to negotiate a more balanced trading relationship with China to further reduce the US trade deficit, which has fallen from a peak of US$418 billion (S$534.20 billion) in 2018 to US$202 billion in 2025, a more than 20-year low.

He said the engagement with China was about creating “more balance in our bilateral trade relationship”.

“The Trump Administration will continue to seek fairness and stability in our relationship with China by reviewing the implementation of recent commitments and working to advance the best interests of America’s farmers, ranchers, producers and workers,” Mr Greer said in a statement.

The Trump administration on March 11 launched a new tariff threat against China and 15 other major trading partners in the form of a new unfair trade practices investigation into excess industrial capacity, an action that could lead to new tariffs within months.

The investigation cited China’s continued investment in overseas auto factories despite unprofitable companies and unused capacity at home.

US officials have said they want China to commit to buying more US agriculture and energy products, as well as ordering new Boeing aircraft for the first time in nearly eight years, before Mr Trump launched his first-term trade war on Beijing.

Planning for Trump-Xi summit has been delayed and complicated by the war in Iran, so it is unclear whether there can be tangible outcomes beyond the two leaders pledging to continue their trade truce and to work together for future outcomes, analysts say.

Typically, such meetings will aim to tee up potential deliverables for Mr Trump and Mr Xi to sign off on, to avoid surprises, said Ms Wendy Cutler, a former USTR trade negotiator who is the Asia Society’s Washington policy director.

“And typically in these kind of summit meetings, if they’re going to produce meaningful outcomes, there’s an intensity of back and forth between the two countries,” Ms Cutler said.

“We’re not seeing that now, so I think that even puts more pressure on this Paris meeting to identify and shape the handful of deliverables.”

A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said the two sides should work to build mutual trust and “uphold the principles of mutual respect” but did not provide details on specific objectives for the meeting. REUTERS