Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are expected to meet on Thursday in Shenzhen, China, on the sidelines of the APEC summit. It would be the first trilateral meeting of the three leaders. The White House confirmed the plans, and the Kremlin confirmed them through spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Xi is hosting the meeting, while the APEC summit itself takes place on November 18 and 19. A spokeswoman for Trump's administration said the meeting will be the final stop of Trump's visit to China. According to available information, the main topics are the reduction of nuclear arsenals and the war between the U.S. and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, which has disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and driven up energy prices.
According to reports, Ukraine is not on the trilateral agenda and will be discussed on a separate track. A representative of the American administration described the meeting as an "entry point," noting that no concrete agreement is expected. He added that the meeting is meant as the start of talks, not as a place where anything will be concluded.
Discussions on nuclear arms come at a time when there is no valid treaty between Washington and Moscow. New START expired in February, and no successor has been agreed. China is estimated to have more than 600 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. and Russia each have more than 5,000. China has so far shown little interest in joining a nuclear agreement.
The meeting also takes place in a broader context. Recent talks on Ukraine, mediated by the U.S. in Abu Dhabi, ended without a breakthrough but resulted in an announced prisoner exchange. At the same time, trade issues between the U.S. and China remain unresolved. The trade truce expires in January, and the questions of tariffs and rare earths have not yet been settled.
Among the business representatives in Trump's official delegation is Elon Musk, the only representative of the business community in that group. It is not known whether Trump will raise the espionage case involving the company Nvidia at the meeting with China. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that decisions about Ukraine could be made behind its back, as at Yalta, while the Kremlin stated that agreements reached in Shenzhen cannot bind other states.