US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was meeting Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng to hash out trade issues between the world's two largest economies before Trump's expected official visit to China at the end of the month.

China's state broadcaster CCTV said the talks, which the US side said would last for two days, were being held at the OECD headquarters in Paris.

The diplomatic engagements come at a tumultuous time for the global economy, with energy markets sent spinning by the impact of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Beijing is a close partner of Tehran and has condemned the killing of Iran's former supreme leader, but it has also criticised Iranian strikes against Gulf states.

Trump, in social media posts on Saturday, called on China and other countries to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz to ensure that the vital shipping lane, through which about a fifth of world oil supplies pass, stayed open.

China's foreign ministry has not yet responded to a request for comment on Trump's request. South Korea said on Sunday it was "closely monitoring" Trump's remarks and a senior Japanese official said that Tokyo maintained a high threshold for such a move.

China's commerce ministry said in a statement on Friday that officials in Paris would "conduct consultations on economic and trade issues of mutual concern", without giving further details about the content of the talks.

Bessent, who was to be accompanied by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, said in a statement on Thursday that "economic dialogue" between the countries "is moving forward".

- New probes -

China and the United States fought a bruising trade war for much of 2025, with reciprocal tariffs reaching triple digits at one point and export restrictions threatening to wreck global supply chains for critical minerals.

Chinese exports to the United States fell 11 percent in the first two months of the year compared with the same period in 2025, data showed this week, although overall exports surged by almost 22 percent.

Tensions between the two economic titans cooled after Trump met Xi in Busan, South Korea, in October, but new US probes into Chinese industrial overcapacity and forced labour announced on Wednesday threaten more instability.

The new trade investigations into excess industrial capacity target China and other key partners.

China's commerce ministry criticised the probes as "a typical act of unilateralism that severely undermines the international economic and trade order".

Washington has also launched trade investigations into 60 economies -- including China -- to look for "failures to take action on forced labour", the US Trade Representative office said.

The latest probes will likely take months, but could justify new tariffs after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump's sweeping global duties in February.

Asked on Friday about the US investigation into forced labour, China's foreign ministry said it "opposes all forms of unilateral tariff measures".

"The so-called forced labour is entirely a lie fabricated by the US side," ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.

The Paris gathering, which is due to last two days, is seen as setting the stage for Trump's expected visit to China later this month.

Washington has said Trump will visit China from March 31 to April 2, although Beijing has yet to confirm those dates in line with its usual practice.