The leaders of the world’s three biggest nuclear powers have never sat down together as a trio. That is set to change next week, according to the White House, which said on Friday that Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen. China hosts the APEC gathering on November 18 and 19, and the three-way session is pencilled in for Thursday the 19th.
Nuclear arms are top of Trump’s list. Spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the president regards the spread of such weapons as “very dangerous” and intends to raise cuts to the world’s stockpiles. Tehran, and the fighting involving it, should also feature in the conversation. Ukraine, however, is off the agenda: senior officials said talks on that conflict run on a “whole other track” with Kyiv and Moscow, and Beijing is not part of it.
Washington is keeping expectations low. Officials described the meeting as an opening conversation rather than a negotiation and said no agreement is anticipated. China has long resisted limits on its arsenal, which is far smaller than those of the US and Russia, and neither Beijing nor Moscow had formally confirmed the meeting at first.
Before Shenzhen, Trump travels to Manila on Monday for the ASEAN summit and a state visit with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., where commercial agreements and a trade pact with Thailand are expected. In China he will have a working lunch and bilateral session with Xi before the joint meeting, which closes his Asia tour. A one-on-one between Trump and the Russian leader is not on the programme.
Elon Musk will travel with the president but stay out of the leaders’ talks. Officials also said they did not expect the week’s Nvidia scandal, which ended with Jensen Huang’s resignation, to feature in any discussions with the Chinese side.
