The most active cotton contract on ICE Futures US, the second-month December futures, was down 0.2 cent, or 0.3%, at 61.47 cents per lb as of 12:37 pm EDT (1637 GMT).
It traded within a range of 61.39 and 62.27 cents a lb.
"Focus is much on what is going to happen later this week with the USDA's production and supply-demand estimates and of course we have the meetings between US and China," said Jack Scoville, vice president at Price Futures Group in Chicago.
"So, those things are going to keep the market pretty choppy. I don't look for sustained moves much higher or lower until we see what the (WASDE) numbers are and see what is the progress with the trade talks."
The USDA is scheduled to release its World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report on Thursday.
The United States and China are scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday and Friday, but reports suggest Beijing may be reluctant to agree to a broad trade deal.
The United States is one of the world's biggest producers of the natural fiber, while China is the largest consumer.
The second-month contract fell about 7% in the previous year and is down about 16% so far this year, predominantly on the protracted tit-for-tat tariff war between the world's two largest economies.
Meanwhile, cotton speculators trimmed their net short position by 1,648 contracts to 34,013 in week to October 1, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday.
Total futures market volume fell by 6,110 to 11,042 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 139 to 235,356 contracts in the previous session.