In the days before two of the world's most consequential leaders were to meet face to face, their economic stewards gathered quietly in Manhattan to map the terrain. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met at JPMorgan Chase headquarters to prepare the ground for a Trump-Xi summit at the White House — only the second such encounter this year, and Xi's first visit to that address in over a decade. The conversations touched on the twin forces reshaping the global order: trade and artificial intelligence, each carrying its own weight of uncertainty and possibility.