Bessent hails 'successful' meeting with He Lifeng

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted a "very successful" meeting on trade and artificial intelligence with Vice Premier He Lifeng on Sunday, adding that both sides discussed greater communication on AI threats. "We just had a very successful engagement with the Chinese," Bessent said after the all-day meeting with Vice Premier He Lifeng. The discussions, which also included top US trade official Jamieson Greer, lasted around eight hours and set the stage for possible agreements on trade, AI and other issues before a summit of the countries' top leaders. President Xi Jinping is due to meet his US counterpart Donald Trump this week in Washington DC. Bessent said the United States proposed a notification mechanism between the two countries for incidents such as security threats. "What we discussed was setting up a mechanism. So it's going to be called the US-China AI dialogue," he said. "We've agreed to meet again." Bessent and He also spoke one-on-one during the gathering that took place at JPMorgan Chase's headquarters in New York. Li Chenggang, Vice Minister of Commerce, who was elevated to a top-level international trade representative post shortly before the meetings, was present too. Greer said US export controls on sophisticated AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment were not on the agenda for the AI mechanism talks. Greer added that Sunday's discussions would prepare the groundwork for a "successful summit" between Trump and Xi on Thursday and Friday in Washington. "These are the two most powerful countries on earth, whether it's in trade or AI, and it's imperative that they're able to work together. It doesn't mean there aren't challenges in the relationship. A lot of these are obvious," Greer said. The meeting covered other key topics, including plans to "operationalise" a process agreed in May for each side to identify potential tariff cuts on non-strategic goods, called the "Board of Trade." Greer did not identify a specific list of products that could see such reductions, but he repeated his desire for a "relatively small subset of American and Chinese goods that can be traded in a balanced way, that are non-sensitive." These would be considered as "a class unto themselves." Potential candidates among Chinese exports include "consumer goods, low-tech items," he said, while US exports for this treatment could include energy, agricultural goods and medical devices, he added. Greer and Bessent did not mention any progress on improving the flow of critical minerals to US companies, which US officials have said are insufficient despite Beijing's prior commitments to ease restrictions under last year's US-China trade truce. The discussions point to more incremental progress in avoiding an escalation of tensions in a delicate trade relationship that has major consequences for the global economy. "I think status quo is probably both sides' general best expectation," Anna Ashton, a China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence said prior to the meeting. Bessent and Greer did not provide updates on other issues that are unresolved after the May meeting in Beijing between Trump and Xi, including Chinese pledges to increase purchases of US agricultural goods by US$17 billion a year and to purchase more than 200 Boeing aircraft. (Agencies) Edited by Tony Sabine