Trump, Xi, and Putin to Hold Historic First Trilateral Meeting in China

Nuclear non-proliferation and the war in Iran will top the agenda when President Trump, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and Russian President Vladimir Putin convene next week for a trilateral meeting, White House officials said on Friday.

The three leaders will meet on Thursday, Nov. 19, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters, according to CBS News. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting on Saturday.

“The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world. This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous,” Wales said.

While the three nations represent the world’s biggest nuclear-armed states, U.S. officials downplayed expectations of an immediate breakthrough. The last nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia expired in February, and China has been rapidly expanding its own atomic arsenal toward an expected 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to The New York Times.

“We do not expect to get to any kind of agreement,” a senior U.S. official said on a call with reporters, as reported by CNN. “I would characterize this as the entry point, the first conversation, certainly at the leader level, between these countries.”

Ukraine Discussions Remain Separate from Trilateral Talks

Although the gathering brings together the major powers behind several global conflicts, discussions on Russia’s war in Ukraine will remain entirely off the table during the trilateral talks. Washington maintains a separate negotiation track with Kyiv and Moscow involving U.S. envoys, and officials said that because China is not part of those discussions, bringing up Ukraine in Shenzhen would be inappropriate.

The Yalta Comparisons and Historical Paranoia

Planning for the summit has drawn immediate comparisons to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin carved out post-war spheres of influence. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and various European officials have voiced deep anxiety that smaller nations could once again find their values and security bartered away in a backroom geopolitical trade-off.

“It is a truism in diplomacy that if you are not around the table, the risk is that you, or your values, are on the menu and about to be carved up,” The Guardian reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the Yalta parallels, noting that any understandings reached in Shenzhen cannot be unilaterally imposed on other sovereign states.

“It’s clear that a meeting between the leaders of countries such as Russia, China and the United States is extremely significant,” Peskov said. “However, let’s not forget that the vision for a global order is that no one tries to impose any particular view of global order, and it should be based entirely on mutual benefit and mutual respect.”

Trump Travels to Philippines and Shenzhen

Before attending the trilateral session, President Trump will stop in the Philippines on Tuesday for a summit hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He will then travel to Shenzhen on Thursday to hold a separate bilateral working lunch and meeting with Xi Jinping, marking their fourth encounter since Trump returned to power last year.

Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX executive Elon Musk will accompany the U.S. delegation on the trip, though officials confirmed he will not participate in the trilateral sit-down with Putin and Xi. Administration officials also clarified that ongoing tensions surrounding U.S. export controls on sensitive semiconductor technology will not be raised during the diplomatic meetings.

“We do not negotiate American export controls. These are national security matters that we develop in the administration … and we don’t expect it to figure at all in any of our conversations with the Chinese while we’re there,” a senior U.S. official told reporters.

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