Donald Trump will meet jointly with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen next Thursday, the White House confirmed on Friday, in the first-ever trilateral meeting of the leaders of the world’s three largest nuclear powers.
The meeting will take place on 19 November on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the southern Chinese technology hub. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters that Trump would use the session to press for reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenals. “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,” she said.
Officials were quick to dampen expectations of a breakthrough. A senior US official who briefed reporters said no agreement was expected from the first encounter, describing it instead as “the entry point, the first conversation” that could in time lead to negotiations on a new arms-control framework involving all three countries.
The talks come nine months after New START, the last treaty limiting the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, expired in February, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers without a binding cap for the first time in more than half a century. The United States and Russia each hold more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, according to Pentagon estimates, while China’s arsenal has grown to more than 600 warheads and has never been bound by such caps.
Trump also intends to raise the war in Iran with both leaders, a senior official said. One subject will be conspicuously absent: Russia’s war in Ukraine, which officials said would not be discussed in the trilateral forum, with those negotiations continuing on a separate track.
The meeting will conclude a week-long Asia trip for the president. He travels to Manila on Monday for the ASEAN summit, where he will hold a bilateral meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, before flying on to Shenzhen. On Thursday morning he will take part in a multilateral session with APEC leaders, followed by a bilateral meeting and working lunch with Xi. The trilateral session with Putin will be the final event of the visit. No separate one-to-one meeting between Trump and Putin is planned.
Beijing had said last week that talks on the three-way meeting were under way, but had not formally confirmed it when the White House announcement landed on Friday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also commented on the planned meeting.
Sources: Associated Press (https://www.washingtonsun.com/whitehouse/trump-xi-putin-joint-meeting-apec) and Reuters (https://www.tbsnews.net/worldbiz/usa/trump-meet-xi-putin-three-way-huddle-nuclear-arms-talks-1601846).
