President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen on Thursday, the White House said on Friday — the first three-way meeting of the leaders of the three countries.
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Chinese tech hub, with nuclear arms control expected to top the agenda. A senior U.S. official told reporters the White House does not expect any agreement to emerge from the talks.
“We do not expect to get to any kind of agreement. I would characterize this as the entry point, the first conversation,” the official said, according to reports of the briefing.
What is on the agenda — and what is not
Trump plans to press for a three-way agreement on reducing nuclear arsenals, and also to raise the war with Iran, the White House said. Russia’s war in Ukraine is unlikely to be raised in the three-way session, according to a senior U.S. official — although the Kremlin has said Putin intends to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine with Trump in Shenzhen.
Xi, who is chairing the two-day APEC summit, is due to hold separate talks and a working lunch with Trump before Putin joins them for the first meeting of its kind between the three countries’ leaders.
Reuters reported that down-to-the-wire negotiations over the meeting had not yet produced a settled agenda or format, and that Beijing remains wary of a gathering it sees as unpredictable. China has long argued that its much smaller arsenal makes three-way disarmament talks premature.
Why it matters now
The meeting comes nine months after the expiry of New START, the last nuclear arms treaty between Washington and Moscow. When it lapsed on February 5, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the two countries were without binding limits on their strategic nuclear arsenals for the first time in more than half a century.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Russia held 5,420 nuclear warheads in January 2026, the United States 5,042 and China about 620.
The APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting runs November 18–19 in Shenzhen and brings together leaders from the forum’s 21 member economies. The confirmation follows China’s statement last week that it was discussing a possible first meeting of the three leaders — a step that has now moved from talks to a scheduled date.
Sources: Reuters; The New York Post; The Associated Press; Nexus Europa.
