U.S., China hold Paris talks

Trade talks are back in Paris — but this round is really about control. Control over tariffs, control over supply chains, and control over the minerals that power batteries, chips, and defense gear. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and trade negotiator Li Chenggang in Paris this week, and both sides described the talks as constructive. (usnews.com) ### Why Paris? Paris is doing two jobs at once. It hosted the latest U.S.-China talks, but it also hosted a G7 trade ministers’ meeting focused on critical minerals — the rare earths and other materials that modern industry now treats like strategic assets. That overlap matters because the U.S. and its allies are trying to reduce dependence on China at the exact moment they still need to negotiate with China. (usnews.com) ### Who was actually in the room? On the U.S. side, it was Bessent and Greer. On the Chinese side, it was He Lifeng, Beijing’s top economic official for this file, and Li Chenggang, its lead trade negotiator. Reuters’ recap of the broader U.S.-China trade standoff framed this as the sixth round of talks and said both sides called the meeting constructive — which is diplomatic language, but still better than a public blowup. (usnews.com) ### What were they talking about? The public readout points to a familiar list — trade frictions, managed trade ideas, and sector-specific issues like farm goods. But the real gravity is elsewhere. Both Washington and the G7 are now treating supply chains for rare earths and other critical inputs as a national-security problem, no(usnews.com)es to be progress on securing those supplies. (cnbc.com) ### Why do critical minerals keep coming up? Because China dominates too much of the chain. Not just mining in some cases, but refining and processing — the less glamorous step that turns raw material into something factories can actually use. That gives Beijing leverage. The G7 ministers in Paris were explicitly trying to find common ground on supplies “dominated by China,” an(cnbc.com)a small number of countries. (usnews.com) ### So are the U.S. and Europe aligned? Not cleanly. The catch is that Washington wants allied help on China-facing supply chains while also threatening fresh tariffs on EU-made cars. That tension showed up in Paris too. Reuters’ G7 coverage said the U.S.-EU tariff rift risked straining unity even as minis(usnews.com)ith itself over who pays the cost. (usnews.com) ### What does the WTO have to do with this? A lot, even when nobody says “WTO” first. Former WTO chief Pascal Lamy argued this week that the U.S. has effectively left the WTO system in practice. His point is not that Washington filed formal withdrawal papers. It’s that the old model — rule-bound trade disp(usnews.com)ch trade diplomacy now looks less like market access talks and more like strategic bargaining. (news.abplive.com) ### Does “constructive” mean breakthrough? Probably not. It means the channel is open. That still matters, because a live negotiating channel lowers the odds of surprise escalation and gives both sides room to manage specific disputes. But nothing in the public reporting suggests a big deal was sign(news.abplive.com)n inference from the pattern of these meetings, not a declared outcome. (usnews.com) ### Bottom line The Paris talks show what trade policy has become in 2026. It is no longer just about selling more stuff across borders. It is about who controls chokepoints, who can weaponize dependence, and whether the old rules still constrain anyone powerful enough to ignore them. Paris did not solve that. But it made the shape of the fight clearer.