Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng was successful ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States this week.

The discussions addressed artificial intelligence, trade, and other matters before the Sept. 24 summit between Trump and Xi in Washington, D.C.

Speaking after the meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at his side, Bessent said the two delegations discussed creating a “U.S.-China AI Dialogue.” The United States proposed a notification system for AI-related incidents.

He said the system would apply to incidents that reach “a national security level from AI.”

“ We believe that, as with any cross-border activity, shifting from opacity to greater transparency between the world’s leading and second-leading AI powers is extremely important,” he said.

The meeting with He occurs as Washington debates AI safety and national security more intensely while the United States and China vie for technological leadership. The Trump administration has supported voluntary safeguards centered on national security rather than sweeping mandatory requirements for AI developers. The topic is expected to feature in talks between Xi and Trump during the Chinese leader’s visit.

Senior AI industry executives have recently cautioned that the technology may rapidly spiral beyond control and create broad new dangers. They called on Washington to establish guardrails and regulations for the sector, an approach Trump has mocked.

Greer said the United States and China have put the U.S.-China Board of Trade into operation to support trade negotiations by identifying a “critical mass of goods” that could be handled separately “when and if there are trade measures” later.

Those products could include “consumer goods, low-tech items” from China and “energy products, agricultural goods, potentially medical devices” from the United States, Greer said.

The meeting takes place ahead of Xi’s high-stakes trip to Washington this week, his first during Trump’s second term. Trump traveled to Beijing earlier this year as tensions between the world’s two largest economies escalated.

Verum reported Friday that JPMorgan Chase

The Washington summit is expected to feature high-stakes economic discussions as the United States and China remain locked in competition.

In addition to AI, the summit is likely to address trade and tariffs. One central element of the current U.S.-China trade truce—the suspension by Washington of increased reciprocal tariffs on imports from China—is due to expire on Nov. 10.

The existing truce includes Chinese pledges concerning rare-earth exports and U.S. agricultural purchases, while the Trump administration lowered certain tariffs and suspended higher reciprocal duties on Chinese goods.

It could be a good time for investors to lock in attractive income in bonds, although selectivity is key. The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates on Wednesday, bringing the fed funds rate to 3.75% to 4%. It also signaled one more increase by the end of the year. While the 10-year Treasury yield initially moved above 5% after the announcement, it was slightly lower Thursday at around 4.95%. Bond yields move inversely to prices. “I’m not sure we’ve seen the top in yields,” said Brian Rehling, co-head of global fixed income and digital asset strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “I think the Fed probably has more work to do.” Bond yields, particularly on the 10- and 30-year Treasurys, had already been moving higher prior to the Fed decision, thanks to concerns about inflation, bond supply from artificial intelligence companies and the rising government deficit. Investors seeking total return, which includes price appreciation and income, may want to stick with equities right now since bond yields are expected to move higher, said Rehling. However, income-seeking investors can snap up some solid yields. “If you don’t care as much about the market price movement, and you can pick up 5%-plus yield … in investment grade or high yield [bonds],” he said, “that’s attractive because even if you have some price deterioration, you do have the coupon that cushions your total return.” Matthew Palazzolo, senior investment strategist at Bernstein Private Wealth Management, also thinks the recent move higher in Treasury yields is a great opportunity for income investors. “That just pushes up overall rates and provides them with a nicer amount of income. And importantly, and as we’ve been saying for our clients, this provides an attractive entry point,” he said. Income opportunities Investment-grade corporate bonds make a lot of sense right now because the economy is expected to continue doing well and corporate fundamentals remain strong, Rehling said. Investors can also add some exposure to high-yield, but they should stick with higher-rated companies since the elevated yields are going to be a drag on the weakest names, he added. He would also stay with shorter-maturity bonds, two years or less — and no more than five years. For its part, the UBS chief investment office sees select opportunities across regions and market segments. “Investors should calibrate both credit risk and duration to their objectives and investment horizons,” wrote Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, chief investment officer for the Americas and global head of equities at UBS Financial Services. He suggests investors consider selectively adding duration in high-quality bonds. “Alongside attractive income, these securities have scope for price gains if tighter monetary policy slows growth or reduces longer-term inflation expectations, leading yields to decline” as bond prices rise, he said. Investment-grade corporates offer attractive income at intermediate maturities, while higher-risk credit — such as high-yield and emerging market bonds — should have short-dated exposure, he added. Tax-free yields This is also a good time to buy municipal bonds, said Bernstein’s Palazzolo. Munis are free of federal tax, and, if the holder lives in the state in which the bond is issued, exempt from state taxes as well. “To buy municipals here, yielding the levels that they are, [you are] not only starting with a nice beginning level of income, but even if rates begin to move higher still, you’re protected against that duration because you’re collecting a good amount of income,” he explained. He tends to favor muni portfolios that have a duration of about six years, with nice income and little interest-rate sensitivity. No ‘immediate’ return to 60/40 In addition to income, bonds may also provide ballast in broader portfolio. “Higher starting yields reinforce bonds’ role as a key source of portfolio income, while high-quality bonds can provide valuable diversification if economic growth slows,” Hoffmann-Burchardi at UBS said. Goldman Sachs is wary of the 10-year Treasury right now and doesn’t see an immediate return to a traditional 60/40 portfolio. “We see a case for a return to more ‘normal’ strategic bond allocations but the tactical case for adding long-dated bonds is mixed,” Goldman analyst Christian Mueller-Glissmann said in a note Thursday. Energy bottlenecks and central bank policy will likely drive both bonds and stocks in the near term, with rate relief supporting both but yield increases weighing more on equities. “That said, over longer horizons, higher starting yields should lift optimal bond allocations from the unusually low levels of the past five years towards historical norms,” he wrote.

This site is now part of Versant. By continuing to use this service, you agree to our Terms. You also acknowledge that our updated Privacy Policy applies, including to your existing data. For details on your data rights, click here.

On this service, we and our vendors use cookies and other tools (“Cookies”) to store and access information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP address, and your browser type. You can access a list of all our potential 1021 vendors by selecting “IAB and Google Vendors,” although we may work with only a small selection of these on this service. Your data may be used to save and communicate your privacy choices; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; for advertising and content measurement; to conduct audience research and services development; so we can improve our services and develop new ones; to match and combine offline data with your online activity; and for social features. We may share this data with select vendors with your consent.

Click “I Accept”, to consent to our use of these Cookies or “Reject All” to reject our use of these Cookies. Click “Manage Choices” to set your preferences. If you previously made choices with respect to Versant’s use of Cookies on this browser and device, you will need to update them. You can adjust your choices any time through the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy to learn more.

We will also use other Cookies that are essential or related to our services, including for security and fraud prevention.

Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.

– Your Privacy

– Strictly Necessary

– Save and communicate privacy choices 516 partners can use this special purpose

– Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 651 partners can use this special purpose

– Deliver and present advertising and content 639 partners can use this special purpose

– Store and/or access information on a device 847 partners can use this purpose

– Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 988 partners can use this purpose

– Targeted Advertising

– Content Selection

On this service, we and our vendors use cookies and other tools (“Cookies”) to store and access information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP address, and your browser type. Your data may be used to save and communicate your privacy choices; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; for advertising and content measurement; to conduct audience research and services development; so we can improve our services and develop new ones; to match and combine offline data with your online activity; and for social features. We may share this data with select vendors with your consent. You can adjust your choices any time through the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings.

We will also use other Cookies that are essential or related to our services, including for security and fraud prevention. To learn more about some of our vendors, see the IAB and Google Vendors under each purpose. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy to learn more.

Always Active

These Cookies and SDKs are required for Service functionality, including security and fraud prevention, and to enable any purchasing capabilities. You can set your browser to block these tracking technologies, but some parts of the site may not function properly.

The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.

Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.

Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.

– Use limited data to select advertising 787 partners can use this purposeAdvertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).

– Create profiles for personalised advertising 633 partners can use this purposeInformation about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.

– Use profiles to select personalised advertising 637 partners can use this purposeAdvertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.

– Create profiles to personalise content 259 partners can use this purposeInformation about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.

– Use profiles to select personalised content 231 partners can use this purposeContent presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.

– Measure advertising performance 912 partners can use this purposeInformation regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.

– Measure content performance 403 partners can use this purposeInformation regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.

– Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 575 partners can use this purposeReports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).

– Develop and improve services 683 partners can use this purposeInformation about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.

– Use limited data to select content 179 partners can use this purposeContent presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).

These Cookies and SDKs are used to collect data about your browsing habits, use of the Services, your preferences, and your interaction with advertisements across platforms and devices for the purpose of delivering targeted advertising content, both on our Services and on third party sites. Third-party sites and services also use Targeting Cookies to deliver content, including advertisements relevant to your interests on the Services. If you reject these Cookies or SDKs, you will see less relevant advertising.

Data collected under this category through Cookies and SDKs can also be used to select and deliver personalized content, such as news articles and videos.

Consent Leg.Interest

label

MS NOW, CNN and Politico are set to sue President Donald Trump on Monday morning and to ask a federal judge to reverse his total ban on those three media outlets from the White House.

Journalists from the outlets were prevented from entering the White House on Saturday, a day after Trump announced he would bar them from working there.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the lawsuit says.

“Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations,” the complaint, set to be filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, notes.

But “the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public,” the suit says. “No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim — with no notice, no process, and no warning—as the President did here.”

Trump, in announcing the ban on Friday accused the outlets of writing fiction and lies about him, and warned, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow,” in a Truth Social post announcing the ban. The president cited what he called “cumulative stories” by the three news organizations, adding, “You get sick of it.”

In a joint statement on Monday, the three outlets said, “This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement said. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

The three outlets will file a joint motion asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order barring Trump and other defendants from taking any more action to enforce the ban, and requiring them to immediately restore so-called hard pass press credentials to the plaintiffs giving their reporters access to the White House.

In addition to Trump, the defendants are his assistant for communications, Steven Cheung, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, and Sean Curran, director of the U.S. Secret Service.

On Sunday night, the White House removed CNN from its scheduled rotation as the pool network for the White House travel pool. The pool is set to travel Monday with Trump for his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

The suit is being filed in the same court where The Associated Press has a pending lawsuit against the White House for a ban on that wire service’s journalists working in certain restricted spaces in the White House, including the Oval Office and on Air Force One. The White House’s partial ban on the AP came in February 2025 after the wire service refused to reflect Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in how it routinely refers to that international body of water.

Trump told reporters on Friday that the latest ban is worth implementing, even if it is overturned by a judge.

“I think it’s good to point it out, whether it survives or doesn’t,” he said.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement after Trump’s announcement, suggested he would lose a legal challenge to the ban because of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections for the media.

“The First Amendment prohibits the president from punishing journalists because he doesn’t like their coverage, just as it prohibits him from punishing universities because he doesn’t like the courses they offer, or from punishing law firms because he doesn’t like the clients they represent,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the institute.

“With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now,” Jaffer said.

MS NOW, in a statement Saturday, had said, “The White House belongs to the American people and the decisions made inside are funded by our tax dollars.”

“MS NOW intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy,” the network said. MS NOW also vowed to “continue to report on the President, the administration, and the issues that impact the American people.”

CNN and Politico issued similar statements, which referred to their constitutional right to report news without government interference.

White House Correspondents’ Association President Jacqui Heinrich, in a statement Saturday, said, “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”

“That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting,” Heinrich, a Fox News correspondent, said.

In the AP’s lawsuit, Judge Trevor McFadden ruled in April 2025 that Trump’s partial ban of the agency’s journalists violated the First Amendment and ordered that the AP be given the same access as other members of the presidential press pool to the Oval Office, other restricted areas of the White House and Air Force One.

“The Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” wrote McFadden, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump.

“The Constitution requires no less,” the judge said.

Rather than allowing The Associated Press access to places the White House press pool goes to cover the president, the White House said it would abolish the so-called wire pool, which included the AP, Bloomberg and Reuters. The wire pool for decades had traveled with presidents to bring news coverage to news consumers around the world. It has not been reinstated.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 vote in June 2025, blocked McFadden’s ruling from taking effect while Trump appealed it.

The panel heard oral arguments in the appeal in November, but has not issued a decision.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.

Disclosure: CNBC and MS NOW are divisions of Versant Media.