Bessent Turns AI Safety Into a U.S.-China Summit Control Channel

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Axios that the U.S. is open to discussing shared AI risks with China ahead of the planned September 24 Trump-Xi summit. AP, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, and Semafor all report that AI governance and safety are now expected to sit inside a broader U.S.-China negotiation frame that also includes trade, rare earths, advanced technology access, Taiwan, Iran, and defense ties. The likely outcome is not a binding AI treaty, but a new control channel for managing frontier-model risk inside strategic competition.