U.S.-China trade talks in Paris

Trade talks are back, but the real story is the mismatch between the room and the rules outside it. In Paris on March 15, top U.S. and Chinese officials held what people briefed on the meeting called stable, constructive talks. They discussed farm goods, critical minerals, and possible deals for a Trump-Xi summit. But the bigger backdrop is that Washington’s main all-purpose tariff weapon was struck down by the Supreme Court in February, so any new pressure campaign now has to use narrower laws and more piecemeal tactics. ### Who actually met in Paris? Scott Bessent and Jamieson Greer led the U.S. side. He Lifeng and Li Chenggang led the Chinese side. The meeting happened at OECD headquarters in Paris and was framed as another attempt to keep the relationship from sliding back into full trade-war chaos. People familiar with the talks described them as “remarkably stable,” which is a low-key phrase but, in U.S.-China terms, a meaningful one. ### What did they talk about? Not a grand bargain. Basically a shopping list. Agriculture came up first — poultry, beef, and other row crops beyond soybeans. Critical minerals were also on the table, which matters because those supply chains now sit at the center of industrial policy, defense planning, and EV manufacturing. There was also discussion of “managed trade,” meaning negotiated purchase commitments instead of cleaner market access rules. ### Why does the soybean number matter? Because it shows the talks were getting concrete. One person briefed on the Paris meeting said China was still committed to buying 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in each of the next three years. That is the kind of number negotiators use when they want to prove the conversation is not just atmospherics. But it also tells you the style of deal being explored — ownership. ### Why was Paris the venue? Because this was partly summit prep. The Reuters account said the talks were meant to tee up possible “deliverables” for a Trump trip to China and a meeting with Xi Jinping, with the leaders left to make the final call. So Paris was less a breakthrough site than a neutral staging ground — somewhere to test what each side might actually sign off on before the politics got bigger. ### What changed after the Supreme Court ruling? A lot. On February 20, the Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose sweeping tariffs, knocking out the legal basis for Trump’s broad reciprocal-style tariff plan. That did not end tariff policy. It narrowed the menu. The administration can still use tools like Section 232 or Section 301, but those are slower, more targeted, and usually tied to specific sectors or findings. ### Why does that matter for China talks? Because it changes the bargaining dynamic. Before, the White House had a fast, blunt instrument for global tariff escalation. Now the pressure comes through narrower channels while diplomats simultaneously try to negotiate commodity purchases and supply-chain uncertainty is what businesses hate most. ### Where does the WTO fit into this? In the background — and not in a healthy way. Pascal Lamy has argued that the U.S. has, in effect, already drifted out of the WTO system by sidelining the dispute-settlement machinery and leaning on unilateral trade tools. You can think of the Paris talks as proof of that broader shift: the biggest trading powers are increasingly managing conflicts through ad hoc bargaining, not shared rules. ### Bottom line? The Paris meeting mattered, but mostly as a sign of what trade diplomacy looks like now. The U.S. and China are still talking, still trading, and still trying to avoid a rupture. But the old idea — one rules-based system, one set of credible constraints — keeps giving way to leader-to-leader dealmaking backed by narrower, more improvised pressure tools.