The discussions, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, are expected to focus on shifting US tariffs, the flow of Chinese-produced rare earth minerals and magnets to US buyers, American high-tech export controls and Chinese purchases of US agricultural products.
The two sides began talks on Sunday morning at the Paris headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a US Treasury official said.
China is not a member of the club of 38 mostly wealthy democracies and considers itself a developing country.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer will also join the talks, which continue a string of 2025 meetings in European cities aimed at easing tensions that threatened a near collapse of trade between the world's two largest economies.
US-China trade analysts said with little time to prepare and Washington focused on the US-Israeli war with Iran, prospects for a major trade breakthrough were limited, in Paris or at the Beijing summit at the end of March.
"Both sides, I think, have a minimum goal of having a meeting, which sort of keeps things together and avoids a rupture and re-escalation of tensions," said Scott Kennedy, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Trump might want to come away from Beijing with major Chinese commitments to order new Boeing aircraft and buy more US liquefied natural gas and soybeans, but might need to offer some concessions on US export controls to achieve that, Kennedy said.
Instead, Kennedy said chances were high for a summit that "superficially suggests progress but that really just leaves things about where they've been for the last four months".
Trump and Xi could potentially meet three other times this year, including at a China-hosted APEC summit in November and a US-hosted G20 summit in December, which could yield more tangible progress.
The US-Israeli war on Iran will likely come up at the Paris talks, especially in reference to the spike in oil prices and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which China gets 45 per cent of its oil.
Bessent on Thursday night announced a 30-day waiver of sanctions to allow the sale of Russian oil stranded at sea in tankers, a move to raise supplies.
"Meaningful" progress in Sino-US economic co-operation could restore confidence to an increasingly fragile global economy, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said in a commentary on Sunday.
The two sides are also expected to review their progress in meeting commitments under the October 2025 trade truce declared by Trump and Xi in Busan, South Korea.
"US priorities will likely be about agricultural purchases by China and greater access to Chinese rare earths in the short term" at the Paris talks, said William Chou, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.
