U.S. and China hold talks in Paris
- U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and trade chief Jamieson Greer met China’s He Lifeng and Li Chenggang in Paris for a sixth round of talks. - The practical agenda was narrower than “reset” talk — tariffs, farm purchases, critical minerals, and new mechanisms to manage trade without blowups. - This matters because the Busan truce is fraying, and both governments now seem focused on containment, not normalization.
Trade diplomacy is back in the room between Washington and Beijing. But this is not a grand reset. It is a maintenance meeting — the kind you hold when the relationship is too important to let break completely, but too tense to fix in one shot. That is basically what the Paris talks were: another attempt to keep the U.S.-China trade fight from sliding back into open escalation. ### Who actually met in Paris? The U.S. side was led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. China sent Vice Premier He Lifeng and chief trade negotiator Li Chenggang. Chinese state media said the two sides held “candid, in-depth and constructive” exchanges over two days in Paris on March 15 and a high-level round in an ongoing channel. ### What were they trying to fix? The immediate problem is tariffs. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s broad tariff regime under the emergency-powers law, Washington shifted to narrower tools, including a 10% surcharge under Section 122 and new Section 301 investigations touching China. Beijing’s line in Paris was blunt: keep the relationship stable, reduce friction, and avoid another spiral. ### Why Paris again? Because Paris had already become the working venue for this channel. In the March round, the two sides discussed agriculture, critical minerals, and a possible “managed trade” framework — basically a more controlled system where both governments steer purchases and access instead of pretending the relationship is normal. ### What does “managed trade” mean here? It means targeted deals, not a rebuilt old order. Think soybeans, poultry, beef, Boeing jets, coal, oil, LNG, and critical minerals — concrete sectors where each side can offer something visible. One Reuters-based account of the March talks said China signaled openness to more U.S. farm purchases and remained committed to buying. That is the logic of this phase: not trust, just tradable deliverables. ### What changed since the Busan truce? The mood. Trump and Xi agreed in Busan on October 30, 2025 to a one-year truce that cut some tariffs, paused rare-earth curbs, and revived some U.S. farm sales. But the truce did not remove the deeper fight over industrial policy, export controls, and leverage. Since the Paris talks happened in a colder environment than the truce did. ### Why do critical minerals keep showing up? Because they are leverage. China’s dominance in rare earths and related supply chains gave Beijing a strong hand in the 2025 confrontation. The Busan truce paused some of that pressure, but nobody forgot the lesson. For the U.S., supply-chain security is now part of trade policy. For China, mineral controls are proof that it can hurt strategic industries fast. ### Is this leading to a bigger Trump-Xi deal? Maybe, but the catch is that leader-level summits now look more like moments to ratify narrow packages than to settle the whole rivalry. Earlier expectations were that the Paris channel would tee up deliverables for a Trump visit to Beijing. Reuters’ May 6 timeline says that visit was due to go through. ### So what is the real takeaway? Both sides seem to have settled on managed confrontation. They want dialogue, because the costs of a full rupture are too high. But they are also keeping the tools of pressure close at hand. That means more meetings, more narrow deals, and very little nostalgia about restoring the old U.S.-China trade relationship.
