Trump, Putin and Xi: first three-way meeting of the world’s biggest nuclear powers set for November 19 in Shenzhen

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will meet on Thursday, November 19 in Shenzhen in southern China, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The White House confirmed on Friday, November 13 the first three-way meeting of the leaders of the world’s three largest nuclear powers. “President 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,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said.

On the American president’s agenda is nuclear weapons reduction. “The president has made clear that, among other issues, he will discuss reducing nuclear weapons in the world, whose proliferation President Trump considers very dangerous,” Wales said. A senior US official confirmed that Trump will also raise Iran, without specifying whether Washington will ask Moscow and Beijing for help to end the conflict or to curb Tehran’s regional activity. The war in Ukraine will not be discussed explicitly, and Trump and Putin will not hold a separate bilateral meeting. US officials do not expect an agreement, describing the meeting as a first conversation on arms control.

No limits on the two biggest arsenals

The nuclear issue carries particular weight, as the New START treaty, the last nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia, expired in February. For the first time in more than five decades, the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals are not subject to limits. Trump rejected a Russian proposal to extend the treaty by a year and asked for a new, modernised agreement that would include China. The Pentagon estimates the Chinese arsenal at more than 600 nuclear warheads, against more than 5,000 for each of the US and Russia, and Beijing has shown little interest in limits.

Trump will arrive in Shenzhen on Wednesday evening for the two-day summit of the 21 APEC members, after the ASEAN summit in the Philippines on Tuesday. On Thursday he will also hold a bilateral meeting with Xi, the fourth since he returned to the White House in 2025. The two leaders have met this year in Beijing and Washington, without substantive progress on trade, artificial intelligence and Taiwan. Chinese state media said only that Xi will hold “bilateral” talks on the sidelines of the summit, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had spoken earlier this month of “signals confirming readiness” for such a meeting.

China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil and Tehran’s largest trading partner, and has become a critical trading partner of Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The three-way meeting comes a few days after Putin met US envoys Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow. Putin had proposed such a meeting in October (our report), while German President Steinmeier had said Xi appeared uninterested in a trilateral on Ukraine (our report).