September 20, 2026, (Inside AI) — US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will meet on Sunday at JP Morgan Chase headquarters in Manhattan to prepare potential agreements on artificial intelligence, tariffs, and critical minerals for a high-stakes Washington summit this week between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping.
The talks, which begin at about 10:30 a.m. local time and include US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, are expected to run all day. They represent the latest round in a 16-month pattern of preparatory meetings held in European and Asian cities to tee up deals for the two leaders.
Three issues dominate the agenda. First, the status of a US-China trade truce set to expire on November 10. Second, the flow of Chinese rare-earth magnets and critical minerals that US officials say remains insufficient. Third, potential guard rails for AI following reports of key security breaches involving AI models.
Analysts expect modest deliverables rather than a breakthrough.
"I think there will be some show of deliverables because of the fact that it's a presidential summit coming, but I don't feel like we're on the verge of some sort of breakthrough," said Anna Ashton, a longtime China trade analyst and founder of Ashton Intelligence. "I think status quo is probably both sides' general best expectation."
The AI discussions carry unusual weight. The US and China are the two major forces driving advanced AI development and global adoption. Rare earths play a crucial role in manufacturing the advanced semiconductor technology that powers AI.
Bessent said on Friday he expects the talks to cover both open-weight and closed-weight models. Open-weight models are AI systems with publicly accessible core elements that users can download and fine-tune for specific tasks. Chinese open-weight models are gaining popularity with US companies because they can be cheaper than closed-weight tools from Anthropic, OpenAI, and other US developers.
"The United States remains the leader in AI. And we are open to discussions on avoiding shared risks and avoiding bifurcation of our two systems," Bessent said in a statement regarding the China talks.
Bessent has called for the US and China to agree on AI guard rails aimed at keeping powerful models out of the hands of malign non-state actors. That framing marks a shift from earlier US positions that treated Chinese AI development primarily as a competitive threat rather than a shared security problem.
Tariff Truce Nears Its Expiration
Many issues on the table are holdovers from the two leaders' meeting in Beijing in May. These include efforts on both sides to cut tariffs on non-strategic goods, Chinese pledges to increase purchases of US agricultural goods by $17 billion a year, and commitments to purchase more than 200 Boeing aircraft.
The November 2025 truce reached in Busan, South Korea, capped US tariffs imposed during Trump's second term at about 20% on Chinese goods. That came after tit-for-tat escalation had brought them to triple-digit levels on both sides.
The US Supreme Court later struck down the Trump tariffs invoked under a national emergencies law, including duties related to fentanyl trafficking. The administration has been rebuilding them under new authorities, including restoring a 12.5% tariff on Chinese goods over forced labor allegations. It is finalizing a separate tariff investigation aimed at curbing excess industrial capacity it says is rampant in China.
Under the truce, China promised to restore the flow of critical minerals to US and global users. A senior US official told reporters on Friday that China's performance on that front has not been up to par and would be a topic for discussion ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.
China's Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that He would lead a delegation of Chinese companies to the US to participate in economic and trade consultations ahead of the summit. The business delegation mirrors a group of US CEOs Trump brought to Beijing in May. It was announced as Trump expressed openness to Chinese automakers building US factories.
US auto industry groups on Friday urged Trump to maintain an effective ban on Chinese vehicle sales in the US on national security grounds, setting up a potential clash between the president's stated openness and domestic industry pressure.
The US and China also agreed in May to launch discussions to reduce tariffs for non-strategic goods under a so-called Board of Trade mechanism, along with a similar forum to deal with specific investment issues. While the Trump administration has tightened restrictions on US companies investing in some industries in China, it is working on rules that would likely allow US pharmaceutical firms to invest in promising Chinese drugs and strike licensing deals for them.
For AI developers and chipmakers watching the talks, the most consequential question is whether the two governments can define what counts as a shared risk. Open-weight models complicate that effort because their core elements are publicly accessible and cannot be recalled once released. Any guard rail framework would need to address distribution and fine-tuning rather than just model creation, a technical distinction that has no precedent in traditional export controls.
The meeting at JP Morgan Chase headquarters is scheduled to run through the day, with outcomes likely to shape the agenda for the Trump-Xi summit later this week.
