Bessent Says U.S. AI Lead Gives Washington Leverage in China Safety Talks

CNBC reported Thursday that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Washington’s decision to engage Beijing on artificial intelligence, arguing the U.S. holds enough of a technological advantage to set the terms of any bilateral AI safety framework.

Bessent Frames U.S. China AI Talks Around American Strength

Speaking to CNBC from the sidelines of President Donald Trump‘s two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Bessent said both governments would establish a shared protocol covering best practices for AI development. The primary goal, he said, is ensuring non-state actors cannot gain access to frontier AI models. Bessent was direct about why dialogue is possible at all. He told CNBC the U.S. is “in the lead,” and suggested the conversation would look very different if the positions were reversed.

The Treasury Secretary also flagged what he described as an imminent leap in AI capability. He anticipates a significant performance jump in upcoming model releases from Google‘s Gemini platform and OpenAI, which he characterized as a meaningful step-change for the industry.

Chip Sales and the Nvidia Question

Semiconductor policy loomed over the broader talks. Washington has spent the past several years restricting exports of advanced AI chips to China, with Nvidia at the center of those controls. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined Trump’s delegation to Beijing as a late addition, a move that drew attention given the ongoing export debate. When pressed on a Reuters report suggesting the administration had approved Nvidia H200 chip sales to certain Chinese technology companies, Bessent acknowledged the issue has involved considerable back-and-forth but declined to provide detail.

Background: First Presidential Visit Since 2017

This week’s Beijing summit marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited China since Trump’s own first-term trip in 2017. Before the leaders convened, Bessent met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in South Korea on Wednesday. China’s Commerce Ministry framed those preliminary discussions as an effort to settle trade disputes and broaden practical cooperation between the two economies.

Taiwan Remains the Sharpest Flashpoint

Xi used Beijing’s official readout of Thursday’s opening session to declare Taiwan the single most consequential issue in the bilateral relationship. China maintains that the democratically governed island is sovereign Chinese territory. Bessent told CNBC that Trump is expected to address the Taiwan question publicly within the coming days, and defended the president’s approach as a deliberate negotiating posture rather than ambiguity.

The summit is scheduled to conclude Friday.

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