* Paris talks seek to tee up proposals for Trump, Xi to

weigh in Beijing

* China open to more buying of U.S. agriculture goods,

sources say

* U.S., China said to explore new ways to manage trade,

investments

* Trump tells FT he may delay Xi meet over Hormuz strait

closure

By David Lawder

PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) - A delay to a planned summit

this month between the U.S. and Chinese presidents would not

stem from trade disagreements but from the possibility Donald

Trump may need to remain in the United States because of the war

with Iran, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday.

Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng led two days of

talks in Paris aimed at preparing the highly anticipated meeting

between Trump and China's Xi Jinping from March 31 to April 2.

Speaking to CNBC, Bessent said the meetings had been "very

good" and benefited from a "stable relationship".

However, he left open whether the leaders' summit would go

ahead as scheduled after Trump told the Financial Times in an

interview published on Sunday that he could also postpone as he

presses Beijing to help unblock the crucial Strait of Hormuz

closed by Iran.

Bessent said any delay would not be because Trump had asked

China to police the strait. "The President wants to remain in DC

to coordinate the war effort, and that traveling abroad at a

time like this may not be optimal," Bessent said.

TRADE TALKS

The U.S. and Chinese delegations resumed talks on Monday at

the Paris headquarters of the Organisation for Economic

Cooperation and Development, a club of mostly wealthy

democracies that does not count China as a member.

In the talks, which began on Sunday, the Chinese showed

openness to potential additional purchases of U.S. agricultural

goods including poultry, beef and non-soybean row crops, one

source said before the second day of meetings.

China was still committed to buying 25 million metric tons of

American soybeans annually for the next three years under the

Trump-Xi October 2025 trade truce, the source added.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Trade

Representative's office declined to characterize the talks.

In a statement on Monday, China's commerce ministry rebuked the

United States over a trade investigation into forced labour,

urging Washington to "correct its wrongdoings".

"Meaningful" progress in Sino-U.S. economic cooperation

could restore confidence to an increasingly fragile global

economy, the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary on

Sunday.

The Paris talks follow several meetings to ease tension last

year between Bessent, He, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson

Greer and Chinese chief trade negotiator Li Chenggang.

MANAGED TRADE MECHANISM

The two sides discussed the establishment of new formal

mechanisms to help manage trade and investment between the

world's two largest economies that Trump and Xi could discuss in

Beijing, two sources said. Technical talks on the proposed

U.S.-China "Board of Trade" and "Board of Investment" were

expected on Monday.

One of the sources said the Board of Trade was the more

developed proposal and would be aimed at finding products and

sectors where the U.S. and China could grow trade in a balanced

way without compromising each other's national security or

critical supply chains.

The Board of Investment would not set broad investment

policies but would address "discrete investment issues" that may

arise between the countries, the source said.

CRITICAL MINERALS, ENERGY

The sources also said U.S. officials discussed the flow of

Chinese-produced critical minerals to U.S. companies and raised

concerns about the U.S. aerospace industry's lack of access to

yttrium from China, which is used in jet engine turbines, among

other applications.

One of the sources said the two sides "found some ways to

loosen up" more challenging areas in critical minerals, but did

not provide specifics.

Before the talks, Greer had told CNBC on Friday that the

U.S. wanted "to make sure that we continue to get the rare

earths we need for our manufacturing base, that they keep buying

the kinds of things they should be buying from us, and that the

leaders have a chance to get together and make sure that the

relationship is going the way we want it to go."

Greer and Bessent also emphasized in the talks the U.S.

desire for China to increase purchases of Boeing ( BA )

jetliners and U.S. coal, oil and natural gas, which could be

further discussed on Monday, the sources said.

But with little time to prepare and Washington's attention

focused on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, prospects for such

major trade breakthroughs were limited, in Paris or at the

Beijing summit, trade analysts said.

"Given that the leaders may meet up to four times this year,

these deliverables maybe can be spread out, rolled out over the

year," said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator who now

heads the Asia Society's Washington policy center.

These meetings include a potential visit to Washington for

Xi, a China-hosted APEC summit in November and a U.S.-hosted G20

summit in December.