President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are preparing to explore a new trade framework this week that could lead to reduced tariffs on approximately $30 billion worth of goods from each nation, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The proposed mechanism, dubbed the “Board of Trade,” was initially suggested by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in March as a major outcome for the upcoming high-level meeting between the two world leaders in Beijing.
While details of the proposal remain limited, this approach represents a significant departure from previous trade discussions. Rather than pressuring China to overhaul its state-controlled economic structure to mirror America’s market-based system, the new strategy focuses on establishing numerical trade goals for non-strategic industries.
“It’s not really a situation where we go and get China to change the way they govern, the way they manage their economy,” Greer explained during a Fox Business Network interview last week. “That’s all baked into their system, but I think there is a world where we find out where can we optimize trade between China and the United States to achieve more balance.”
Greer compared the proposed system to an electrical “adapter” that could help bridge the gap between two fundamentally different economic models.
On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held a three-hour preparatory meeting in Incheon, South Korea, to finalize economic proposals for the Trump-Xi discussions. However, neither official released public statements following their preliminary talks.
According to four individuals with knowledge of the administration’s goals, the framework would involve a reciprocal $30 billion trade barrier reduction arrangement to launch the new system. It remains uncertain whether specific products will be identified during the Trump-Xi summit or in follow-up negotiations.
Former USTR negotiator Wendy Cutler, who currently leads the Asia Society Policy Center in Washington, indicated that both nations “are coalescing around” a $30 to $50 billion collection of goods for reduced tariffs or other trade barriers.
“The non-sensitive basket is just such a small part now of our overall trade with China. So maybe this Board of Trade, maybe it starts with that” and expands in the future, Cutler said during a virtual Asia Society forum on Tuesday.
Trade volume between the two nations decreased by 29% in 2024, falling from $582 billion to $415 billion, while the U.S. trade deficit dropped nearly 32% to $202 billion in 2025 – its smallest level in twenty years, based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics.
Both the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and Treasury Department declined to provide additional comments about the proposed system before the Beijing summit.
China has avoided using the “Board of Trade” terminology, stating in March that both sides had “agreed to explore the establishment of working mechanisms to expand economic and trade cooperation” without providing further specifics.
The United States is particularly interested in boosting energy and agricultural exports to China, making Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs on these commodities a potential target for reduction.
Currently, China maintains a blanket 10% additional tariff on all American imports, which corresponds to the existing 10% temporary U.S. tariff on Chinese products. Beyond these measures and standard “most favored nation” rates, Beijing has imposed retaliatory duties including 10% on crude oil, 15% on liquefied natural gas, 15% on coal, and up to 55% on beef.
The United States continues to impose 7.5% tariffs on various Chinese consumer goods that were implemented in 2019 during the height of Trump’s initial trade conflict with China. These affected products include flat-screen televisions, flash memory devices, smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones, bedding, multifunction printers, and numerous types of shoes. The temporary 10% global U.S. tariff, scheduled to expire in July, is applied in addition to these existing duties.
America could also revive some of the more than 2,200 product-specific exemptions from China tariffs that were granted during Trump’s first presidency but have mostly lapsed since then.
In November 2025, Trump extended temporary tariff exemptions for one year on solar manufacturing equipment and 164 categories of industrial and medical products, ranging from printed circuit boards to electric motors and blood pressure monitoring devices. Some of these exemptions could become permanent.
The two countries are also expected to address the less-developed idea of a “Board of Investment” for handling investment matters, though Greer told the Hudson Institute last month: “I don’t think we’re at the point in our relationship with the Chinese where we want to talk about big investment programs either way.”
Congressional lawmakers and representatives from automotive, steel, and technology industries have cautioned Trump against any agreement that would permit Chinese investment in the U.S. automotive sector, contending that such arrangements would undermine American manufacturing capabilities.
