Washington and Beijing Float a Trade Body. The Details Are Thin.

The US and China are exploring a new bilateral "Board of Trade" to manage economic tensions, following what officials described as "remarkably stable" talks in Paris last week.

Source: Polymarket

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The proposal, first reported by Bloomberg on 16 March and confirmed by Reuters and RTV Online, emerged from economic discussions between US and Chinese trade officials in the French capital. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the talks "very good" and signalled that the mechanism could provide a permanent institutional channel for managing trade disputes, agricultural purchases, and technology restrictions outside the cycle of tariff threats and retaliatory escalation that has defined the relationship since 2018.

The concept is not entirely new. Washington and Beijing previously operated the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, established in 1983, and the Strategic and Economic Dialogue under the Obama administration. Both were abandoned during the Trump era's first trade war. The proposed Board of Trade would function as a successor body, though its mandate, membership, and enforcement powers remain undefined.

The timing matters. The Iran war has pushed the US to seek Chinese cooperation on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, giving Beijing unusual leverage in a relationship that has otherwise been defined by confrontation over semiconductors, Taiwan, and industrial subsidies. Trump signalled a possible delay to a planned Beijing summit on 16 March, but the trade mechanism appears to be advancing on a separate track.