U.S. and China hold sixth Paris preparatory talks as Trump centers Beijing summit on trade

Trade is back at the center of the U.S.-China relationship — not as background noise, but as the main reason Donald Trump is going to Beijing on May 14 and 15. That trip now has a clear runway after a sixth round of preparatory talks in Paris between U.S. and Chinese officials. Both sides used the same soothing word, “constructive,” which usually means they did not solve the hard stuff but did decide the meeting is worth having. That matters because the hard stuff is exactly what this summit is about. ### Why are they meeting in Paris first? Paris is basically the staging ground. The U.S. and China have been using it for repeated pre-summit talks to narrow the agenda before Trump and Xi sit down in person. The sixth round signals that this is not a one-off cleanup call — it is a sustained dialogue between Scott Bessent on the U.S. side and Vice Premier He Lifeng for China. ### Why is trade the main event? Because both governments think they can manage tension everywhere else only if the economic fight does not spin out. Earlier Paris talks focused on farm goods, investment, and even possible formal mechanisms to manage trade disputes. That is about dealing with trade issues without giving up their bigger rivalry. ### What does Trump want out of this? Trump appears to be centering the summit on leverage. His team has revived tariff threats as the familiar pressure tool, and the visit was delayed from an earlier window before being reset for mid-May. The logic is simple — arrive in Beijing with enough economic pressure in reserve to force concessions around China’s timetable. ### So why might that be harder now? Because Chinese exporters do not sound especially rattled. Reuters reporting this week described a mood shift inside China’s export sector — tariff threats that once looked scary now look survivable. If that mood is real, Washington’s favorite bargaining chip gets weaker. A threat only works if the other side believes the pain will be worse than the compromise. ### Where does Taiwan fit in? Taiwan is not the headline of this summit, but it is the sharpest security issue hanging over it. On April 30, Wang Yi told Marco Rubio that Taiwan is the “biggest risk” in U.S.-China relations and tied stable ties to proper handling of that issue. That is Beijing reminding Washington that even if trade dominates the room, the red lines have not moved. ### Does that mean the summit is really about security? Not exactly. It means trade and security are now fused. Beijing wants economic talks without fresh shocks over Taiwan. Washington wants economic concessions without looking soft on security. Neither side can fully separate the two anymore, but trade is still the part where both leaders can most plausibly announce something tangible. ### What would count as a real outcome? Probably not a breakthrough. More likely: a managed-trade framework, sector-specific purchases, or a promise to keep negotiating after Beijing. That sounds small, but small is the point. A summit like this succeeds if it lowers the odds of a fresh tariff spiral and buys a few months of predictability. ### Bottom line? The Paris talks matter because they show both governments still want the Beijing summit to produce something concrete. But the catch is that the old script — Trump threatens tariffs, China blinks — may not work as cleanly this time. If Beijing thinks it can absorb the pressure, then Trump arrives with less leverage than the optics suggest.