U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He ​Lifeng were expected to meet on Sunday to try to prepare ground for potential agreements on artificial intelligence, tariffs and critical minerals for a high-stakes Washington summit this week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The meetings ⁠at JPMorgan Chase's headquarters in Manhattan, which will also include U.S. ⁠Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, were due to start at about 10:30 a.m. (2.30 p.m. GMT) and are expected to run all day.

Reuters reported that the Chinese vice premier arrived in New York with visuals also showing him entering the banking giant's headquarters.

Key topics will be the status of a U.S.-China trade truce that is set to expire on Nov. 10, flows of Chinese rare-earth magnets and critical minerals that U.S. ​officials say are insufficient, and potential guardrails for artificial intelligence after reports of key security breaches involving ​AI models.

The ⁠most likely outcome, analysts say, would be for Washington and Beijing to agree on small steps to show they are continuing to avoid escalating tensions in a delicate trade relationship that has major consequences for the global economy.

"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 the status quo is probably both sides' general best expectation."

Many of the issues that He, Bessent and Greer will have to work through for Trump and Xi are holdovers from the two leaders' meeting in Beijing in May, including an effort on both sides to cut tariffs on non-strategic goods and Chinese pledges to increase purchases of U.S. agricultural goods by $17 billion a year and to purchase more than 200 Boeing aircraft.

The Bessent-He-Greer meeting follows a pattern set over the past 16 months, in which the three officials met in European and Asian cities to tee up potential agreements for Trump and Xi.

These efforts included ⁠the ⁠November 2025 truce reached in Busan, South Korea, which capped U.S. tariffs imposed during Trump's second term in office at about 20% on Chinese goods after tit-for-tat escalation had brought them to triple-digit levels on both sides.

The U.S. Supreme Court later struck down the Trump tariffs that were invoked under a national emergencies law, including duties related to fentanyl trafficking.

Trump's 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 that it says is rampant in China.

Under that truce, China promised to restore the flow of critical minerals to the U.S. and global users. However, a senior U.S. 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.

New talks on AI

The Bessent-He discussions on AI are ⁠significant because the U.S. and China are the two major forces driving the development of advanced AI tools and the global adoption of the technology.

Rare earths play a crucial role in the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor technology powering AI.

Bessent said on Friday he expects the discussions to cover "both open- and closed-weight models." Open-weight models are AI systems with publicly accessible core elements, where ​users can download and fine-tune them for specific tasks.

Chinese open-weight models are becoming more popular with U.S. companies because they can be cheaper than closed-weight AI tools such ​as those developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and other U.S. companies.

"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 U.S. ⁠and China to agree ‌on AI "guardrails," ‌aimed at keeping powerful models out of the hands of malign non-state actors.

Tariff reductions, investment

The U.S. 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 U.S. companies investing in some industries in China, Reuters reported on Friday that it ​is working on rules that would likely allow U.S. ⁠pharmaceutical firms to invest in promising Chinese drugs and strike licensing deals for them.

China's Ministry of Commerce said on ⁠Saturday that He would also lead a delegation of Chinese companies to the U.S. that would participate in economic and trade consultations ahead of the summit.

The business ⁠delegation, which mirrors a group of ​U.S. CEOs that Trump brought to Beijing in May, was announced as Trump expressed openness to Chinese automakers building factories in the U.S.

U.S. auto industry groups on Friday urged Trump to maintain an effective ban on Chinese vehicle sales in the U.S. on national security grounds.