U.S. and China resume formal trade talks in Seoul ahead of May 14 Beijing summit

Trade talks are back on the calendar — and this time they are not being treated like a side show. The U.S. and China said senior officials will meet in Seoul on May 12 and 13, just before Donald Trump arrives in Beijing for a May 14–15 summit with Xi Jinping. That shifts the trip away from pure ceremony and toward actual bargaining. The basic point is simple: both governments want something concrete ready before the leaders sit down. ### Who is actually meeting in Seoul? The Seoul meeting pairs U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng, the two officials now doing the heavy lifting on the economic file. China’s commerce ministry said He will lead the delegation. On the U.S. side, Trump officials have framed the talks as prep work for the summit rather than a standalone breakthrough attempt. ### Why Seoul, and why now? Because the summit is too close for both sides to walk in cold. The leaders are due to meet in Beijing on May 14 and 15, with Trump arriving on May 13. A working session in Seoul gives negotiators one last chance to narrow the list of fights, test possible deliverables, and figure out what can realistically be announced in Beijing. ### Haven’t they already been talking? (scmp.com) Yes — but mostly in smaller or more tentative formats. Reuters-based reporting says Bessent, He, and other senior officials met in Paris in March, then held a video call in April. Those contacts kept the line open, but they did not settle the bigger disputes. The Seoul round matters because it is formal, in person, and timed directly to feed into the leaders’ meeting. (ajupress.com) ### What are they trying to get done? The near-term target looks modest. Officials are weighing whether to extend the current trade truce and possibly the related critical-minerals arrangement that helped stop the relationship from sliding further. That is a very different goal from a grand bargain. Basically, they are trying to keep the floor from falling out while leaving the hardest disputes for later. (usnews.com) ### Why is the bar set so low? Because the list of unresolved fights is long. Trade is only one lane now. Trump and Xi are also expected to discuss Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, and nuclear issues. When that many security and technology disputes are sitting on the table, a clean trade reset becomes much harder. The summit is more about stabilizing a dangerous relationship than solving it. (al-monitor.com) ### So is this a breakthrough? Probably not. Analysts and officials previewing the summit have been signaling the same thing — do not expect a dramatic deal. Minor wins are more plausible, like extending existing arrangements, restarting channels, or packaging narrow commercial commitments that both sides can sell at home. That may sound small, but in U.S.-China relations, small is sometimes the whole game. (channelnewsasia.com) ### Why should anyone outside government care? Because even a limited truce changes the temperature for markets, supply chains, and companies making investment decisions. The catch is that stability is not the same as trust. Tariffs, export controls, and strategic suspicion are still embedded in the relationship. Seoul can lower the odds of another immediate blowup — but it does not remove the machinery that could produce one. (usnews.com) ### Bottom line? Seoul looks like the real work session before Beijing. If Bessent and He can line up a narrow extension or a few practical deliverables, Trump and Xi can present the summit as progress. If they cannot, the Beijing meeting still happens — but it starts looking more like stagecraft than substance. (weforum.org)