U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris Sunday and Monday for trade talks, the Treasury Department said Thursday. The discussions prepare for President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing starting March 31, though Beijing has not confirmed the trip. “Thanks to the bonds of mutual respect between President Trump and President Xi, the trade and economic dialogue between the United States and China is moving forward,” Bessent said in a statement. “Under the guidance of President Trump, our team will continue to deliver results that put America’s farmers, workers, and businesses first.” The talks between He and Bessent are seen as preparatory work for the state visit that Beijing has not confirmed. The White House has said Trump is traveling to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, and it’s widely believed that the visit aims to keep relations stable between the world’s two largest economies. The Paris talks will be the “most important bilateral meeting before the Xi-Trump meeting,” said Gary Ng, a senior economist at French bank Natixis and a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies. Trump’s visit to China will be the first for a U.S. president since he went in his first term in 2017. It will come five months after the two leaders met in the South Korean city of Busan and agreed to a one-year truce in a trade war that temporarily saw tit-for-tat tariffs soar to triple digits before the two sides climbed down. The business community and analysts are expected to closely follow the talks between Bessent and He for clues of possible agreements when Trump meets Xi in Beijing, including whether China would purchase more U.S. products such as soybeans and airplanes and how the two sides would manage the trade imbalance. Several days ago, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it would be a