Just weeks before a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Washington’s top trade negotiator signalled a cautious, tightly managed approach to China ties, ruling out a pre-summit visit to Beijing, favouring continued virtual engagement, and indicating no new push to expand bilateral investment.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer indicated on Tuesday that preparatory talks with Chinese counterparts would take place virtually, ruling out an in-person trip to Beijing before the summit even as working-level discussions continue.
“There’s a Zoom call coming up,” he told the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of a Hudson Institute event in Washington, adding that a pre-summit visit to the Chinese capital was unnecessary because “working-level groups were meeting regularly”.
Greer, who confirmed to the SCMP that he will be travelling to Beijing with Trump on May 14-15, met with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao last month on the margins of the 14th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Yaounde, Cameroon, as summit preparations continue.
The meeting followed a fresh round of talks with the Chinese delegation, led by Vice-Premier He Lifeng, along with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Last week, Greer said negotiators in Paris had reached “general agreement on the types of outcomes” for the May summit, and outlined plans for a “Board of Trade” to pursue “managed trade” – a system based on buying equal value of goods from each other.
Earlier on Tuesday, speaking at the event, Greer described the economic relationship as “stable”, but made clear that stability, in practice, means maintaining existing pressure points: continuing to impose substantial tariffs on Chinese goods, ensuring ongoing access to rare earths from China, and holding off on any broader expansion of investment ties.
“I don’t think we’re at the point in our relationship with the Chinese where we want to talk about the investment programmes either way, right?” Greer said, cautioning against “premature discussions” as the administration focuses on bringing the trade deficit “under control”.
Greer added that the US wants to “make sure our national security is in a very good place vis-a-vis the Chinese”, while leaving room for limited, “discreet” discussions to address specific investment “roadblocks” involving American firms.
The SCMP reported last month that the Trump administration has been reluctant towards Chinese proposals to expand investment in the US, as concerns over national security dominate domestic political discourse and Chinese companies face greater scrutiny.
Chinese investment in the US has dropped sharply since Trump’s first term, falling from nearly US$47 billion in 2017 to under US$2 billion annually in 2023–2024.
Even as China’s global outbound investment rose to US$124 billion in 2025, North America accounted for just 2.6 per cent of that total.
The February international trade data released by the US Census Bureau and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis last week showed the US goods deficit with China stood at US$13.1 billion in February, continuing a sharp decoupling trend.
This was marginally up from January’s revised US$12.7 billion, but remains historically low. Last year the figure dropped to US$202.1 billion – the lowest level since the early 2000s.
Greer’s office last month launched probes into alleged unfair practices by key trading partners, including China.
Beijing has responded with its own investigations of US restrictions on Chinese imports, including green energy, and export of advanced tech, expressing “firm opposition” to the American measures.
On Tuesday, Greer emphasised that Washington is not seeking escalation. “Massive confrontation” is not the goal, he said, framing the coming summit as a way to preserve a controlled equilibrium in the relationship.
On trade, he said both sides are working to “figure out what are the non-sensitive goods we should be trading with each other”, while expressing hope that one persistent sticking point can be resolved before it reaches the leaders.
“It would be nice not” to have the rare earths issue come up between Trump and Xi, he said. “It’d be nice if we could resolve it at the minister’s level and the staff level, and hopefully we’re in a position to do that.”
According to Hilton Root at George Mason University, the two sides want to avoid “the most contentious issues” to come up during the leaders’ talks – including geopolitics and the political economy of global investment.
Referring to the Busan agreement reached between Xi and Trump in October last year, when China agreed to remove certain restrictions on export of rare earths in exchange for some tariff removals for a period of one year, Root said that the US wants some assurances from Beijing on the issue.
Washington hopes rare earths “won’t be weaponised in future discussions”, he added, noting that the Chinese were “very reluctant” to do that while they remain interested in getting more access to high-end US technologies such as advanced semiconductors and chip manufacturing equipment.
Root observed there’s not “enough time” for Greer to make two trips to Beijing – between now and May summit. “So it makes sense that they would have a virtual meeting.”
Root, an economist, said the Chinese have accepted the idea that there should be a trade committee, and at this stage it was “normal” to leave the details to working-level groups.
These committees, he added, “do the really difficult work of designing something that is actually functional, and that’s going to be an elaborate process”.
Root does not see this lengthy and complex process to conclude by the summit, and expects the deliverables would “be an agreement on a process in which the details can be worked out”. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
