PARIS, March 16 - Senior economic officials from the United States and China met in Paris for a set of negotiations that participants described as "remarkably stable," with talks focused on agricultural purchases, the flow of critical minerals, and formal mechanisms to manage trade and investment between the two economies.
Delegations led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng spent more than six hours in discussions on Sunday at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Paris headquarters. Sources familiar with the meetings said the talks were intended to set the stage for possible "deliverables" that could be presented for consideration when U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing at the end of March.
Participants stressed that any proposals emerging from Paris would be subject to final approval by the two leaders. At the same time, President Trump indicated in an interview published on Sunday that the summit could be delayed. He said, "We may delay," as he presses Beijing to help address the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, making the scheduling of the Beijing meeting uncertain.
Agricultural purchases and commitments
During the talks, Chinese negotiators signaled openness to additional purchases of U.S. agricultural products, with potential interest in poultry, beef and non-soybean row crops, according to people briefed on the meetings. Those sources also reiterated that China remained committed to the Trump-Xi October 2025 trade truce provision obliging purchases of 25 million metric tons of American soybeans in each of the next three years.
U.S. officials, including members of the trade delegation, emphasized their interest in securing expanded Chinese purchases across several energy- and aerospace-related categories as well. Those areas cited by U.S. negotiators included Boeing jetliners as well as U.S. coal, oil and natural gas, all of which could be subject to further discussion between the delegations and at the leaders' meeting.
Managed-trade mechanisms under consideration
Technical-level talks held in Paris addressed two proposed institutional mechanisms designed to manage commerce and investment ties: a U.S.-China "Board of Trade" and a "Board of Investment." Sources said the Board of Trade proposal was the more developed of the two.
The envisioned Board of Trade would aim to identify products and sectors where bilateral trade could expand in a balanced manner without undermining national security or critical supply chains. The proposed Board of Investment would not establish broad investment policy, according to these sources, but would serve as a venue to address "discrete investment issues" as they arise between the countries.
Critical minerals, supply access and technical concerns
U.S. negotiators also raised concerns about access to Chinese-produced critical minerals. One specific issue highlighted was U.S. aerospace industry access to yttrium, a material used, among other applications, in jet engine turbines. A participant in the talks said the two sides "found some ways to loosen up" more challenging areas in critical minerals, though the source did not provide further specifics.
Prior to the Paris meetings, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer had framed the U.S. position succinctly, saying the United States wanted "to make sure that we continue to get the rare earths we need for our manufacturing base, that they keep buying the kinds of things they should be buying from us, and that the leaders have a chance to get together and make sure that the relationship is going the way we want it to go." Greer had made that comment in a pre-meeting interview on Friday.
Negotiation dynamics and public communications
Spokespeople for the U.S. Treasury and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative declined to characterize the discussions publicly. Chinese officials left the Paris talks on Sunday without speaking to reporters. State-run commentary in China noted the potential significance of progress. In a Sunday commentary, China's Xinhua news agency said "meaningful" progress in Sino-U.S. economic cooperation could help restore confidence in an increasingly fragile global economy.
The Paris session follows several prior meetings held last year among many of the same principal negotiators, including Bessent, He, Greer and China's chief trade negotiator Li Chenggang. Those earlier talks were part of a sequence of engagements aimed at easing tensions between the two major economies.
Timing, scope and limits on immediate breakthroughs
While negotiators in Paris generated technical workstreams and advanced potential mechanisms, observers and analysts noted limits on the prospects for major, rapid breakthroughs. With limited time to prepare and with Washington's attention concentrated on the U.S.-Israeli war involving Iran at the time, both the Paris discussions and a potential summit in Beijing were unlikely to produce comprehensive trade resolutions in the immediate term, according to trade analysts cited by participants.
One observer, former U.S. trade negotiator Wendy Cutler, suggested that any agreed "deliverables" could be staged over multiple meetings rather than all being completed at one summit. She observed that the two leaders could meet up to four times this year, and that the schedule of potential encounters could include a visit to Washington by President Xi, a China-hosted APEC summit in November and a U.S.-hosted G20 summit in December. Under that approach, items negotiated in Paris could be rolled out incrementally across subsequent leader-level meetings.
Outlook
The Paris talks produced a technical rhythm for further negotiation on agriculture commitments, critical minerals access and institutionalized managed-trade mechanisms. Any final decisions and formal commitments, however, remain in the hands of the presidents, and the timing of a face-to-face leaders' meeting in Beijing could change depending on evolving geopolitical priorities.