White House: Trump-Putin-Xi trilateral summit Thursday
Trump, Putin and Xi hold their first-ever trilateral summit Thursday at the APEC gathering in Shenzhen, to discuss nuclear arms cuts and Iran, leaving Ukraine off the table.
Presidents Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are set to hold their first-ever trilateral meeting next Thursday, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wells announced, according to BBC Arabic.
Wells said: "Trump will conclude his visit to China with a trilateral meeting between the President of the United States, the President of the People's Republic of China and the President of the Russian Federation." She added that the US president "will discuss, among other topics, the issue of reducing nuclear weapons in the world," saying that this proliferation "poses grave danger" in his view. The Associated Press and Reuters, citing an unnamed senior US official, reported that no concrete agreement is expected to come out of the talks.
What's on the table?
The leaders of the world's three biggest nuclear powers are expected to discuss the Iran file, while the war in Ukraine will not be discussed, according to BBC Arabic, as Washington pursues a separate negotiating track with Kyiv and Moscow that Beijing is not part of, according to France 24, a reference to the Abu Dhabi talks between Russia and Ukraine. Chip export controls, and calls for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation, are also not on the agenda, per France 24. Moscow and Beijing have so far issued no official comment on the meeting's date or content.
Historic — why?
If it goes ahead as announced, this would be the first-ever trilateral summit bringing together the leaders of the United States, Russia and China at once, amid an unprecedented regulatory vacuum in global nuclear arms control: the nuclear arms limitation treaty between Washington and Moscow expired last February, leaving the world's two largest nuclear arsenals without major constraints, according to BBC Arabic. The UN urged both sides to agree on a new framework without delay, while Trump says he would prefer a broader deal that includes China, which keeps expanding its own nuclear arsenal. Former senior US officials and analysts had previously warned that securing cooperation from Beijing and Moscow on this file could face major obstacles and take years.
A packed trip for Trump, from the Philippines to China
Trump will leave Washington to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in the Philippines first on Tuesday, before arriving in Shenzhen late Wednesday for the two-day APEC summit of 21 member economies, according to BBC Arabic. He holds bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday, their fourth meeting since the US president returned to office in 2025, before concluding the trip with the trilateral meeting alongside Putin. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is accompanying Trump on the trip but will not attend the trilateral meeting itself, according to France 24. Chinese state media said Friday, citing a foreign ministry spokesperson, that Xi Jinping will take part in "bilateral" talks on the sidelines of the APEC summit, without explicitly mentioning the trilateral meeting, according to BBC Arabic.
This diplomatic rapprochement comes as the Iran war remains another point of friction between Washington and Beijing, which is the largest buyer of Iranian oil and Iran's top trade partner, according to BBC Arabic, while tension persists in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran recently announced oil tankers catching fire after hitting naval mines. This trilateral summit, if held, would be the first of its kind since Xi Jinping separately hosted both Putin and Trump in Beijing just days apart earlier this year, while Trump received his Chinese counterpart in Washington last September.