White House Confirms Trump, Xi and Putin Will Meet in Shenzhen Next Week, With Low Expectations
The first meeting of the three leaders is set for the sidelines of APEC. Nuclear arms are on the agenda, Ukraine is not, and a senior official says no deal is expected from it.
Saturday, November 14, 2026/2 min read
Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will hold their first three-way meeting next week in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, the White House said on Friday. It will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and the administration is already working to keep expectations down.
Spokesperson Olivia Wales announced the meeting on a call with reporters, Nikkei Asia reported, citing Reuters. It is due on the Thursday of next week, Nikkei said, while the summit itself runs 18 to 19 November, according to the Kyiv Independent.
What will Trump, Xi and Putin discuss in Shenzhen?
Nuclear weapons come first. Wales said Trump will discuss reducing nuclear arsenals, whose spread he considers very dangerous, per Nikkei. The New START treaty between Washington and Moscow expired in February, leaving no caps on the two largest arsenals for the first time in more than 50 years, Al Jazeera noted. Trump rejected Russia's offer to extend it by a year and wants a new, modernised deal that includes China. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said real arms control in this century is impossible without Beijing, the Kyiv Independent noted, and it cited the Wall Street Journal as reporting that Putin proposed the three-way format to secure a peace deal more favourable to Russia.
A senior US official said Trump also plans to raise the war involving Iran but not the war in Ukraine, because China is not part of the separate US-Russia track, Nikkei reported. The same official said the administration does not expect any agreement and sees the meeting as the start of a conversation. Trump is not expected to hold a one-on-one with Putin, and Elon Musk will travel with the president but not sit in.
Why are Europe and Ukraine uneasy?
Kyiv worries that a summit of three powers could become a venue for settling its war without it. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said it would only encourage Putin to continue, the Kyiv Independent reported. The Kyiv Independent also cited Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov as saying earlier this week that Trump and Putin would hold in-depth talks on a peace settlement in China, with Ukraine and Europe absent. The White House line is that Ukraine is not on the agenda.
Moscow has pushed back on comparisons with the 1945 Yalta conference. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said agreements reached in Shenzhen could not be imposed on others, but called the meeting extremely significant, Al Jazeera said. China has resisted nuclear talks with the US and Russia, and is hosting a summit focused on trade, Nikkei noted, and the Chinese and Russian embassies had not responded to requests for comment.
Trump leaves on Monday for a four-day Asia trip that includes a stop in the Philippines. Whether the Shenzhen meeting produces more than a photograph will depend on whether Beijing is willing to discuss its growing arsenal at all.
Published in The Outspoken Digest
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