Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raised the idea on Sunday in New York during talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, days before President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are due to meet in Washington. The U.S. proposal: a notification mechanism for serious AI incidents that rise to a national-security threshold, embedded in a prospective U.S.-China AI dialogue.¹

Bessent cast the initiative as a basic safeguard between competitors whose systems increasingly cross borders and whose AI race is entwined with military and economic power. “The US has proposed that we have a notification mechanism between the two countries, and we want a shared vision of common goals and common threats,” he said.² He argued that moving “from opaque to more transparency” between the leading AI powers is essential.¹

The timing is politically charged. The Trump administration has favored voluntary, national-security-focused AI safeguards rather than broad mandatory rules, even as researchers, executives and lawmakers renew warnings about powerful systems and catastrophic misuse. The proposed channel would sit alongside—not replace—the countries’ harder disputes over advanced chips, semiconductor equipment and competing AI models.²

China’s public response was notably narrower. Xinhua characterized the New York meeting as “candid, in-depth and constructive” and confirmed that AI was discussed, but did not mention the alert mechanism.³ That silence leaves the U.S. initiative short of a bilateral agreement heading into the summit.

Trade remains the other track. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the sides were developing a framework for “non-sensitive” goods that might receive separate treatment in future trade fights, while stressing that export controls on advanced AI chips were not part of the AI discussion.³ For now, Washington is offering a crisis line even as neither side has eased the rivalry that could make it necessary.