Chinese investments into “non-strategic, non-sensitive” US companies would get fast-tracked regulatory approval under an agreement being ironed out in Beijing this week.
“What we want to do is make sure that these investments don’t get referred” to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, the government body that reviews and often rejects inbound deals on national-security grounds, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC.
“So this would pre-game those investments.” Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart in Seoul earlier this week and Republican senators who visited China the week prior said the board could serve as a way for non-sensitive deals “to take place in a more routine manner.”
That contradicts what Amb. Jamieson Greer, the administration’s top trade official, told Semafor last month: The “board of investment” being discussed “isn’t about CFIUS,” he said. “It doesn’t affect that. It’s really a government-to-government forum to talk about investment issues as they come up.”
Chinese investment into the US has fallen from $56 billion in 2016 to less than $4 billion in 2025, squeezed by tightening scrutiny on both sides. Both countries are keen to boost that number, though where the White House’s red line is drawn — particularly around cutting-edge tech and AI components — will be key.
