Trump, Xi and Putin Plan Unprecedented Joint Meeting on APEC Sidelines in Shenzhen

The White House confirmed on Friday that the presidents of the United States, China and Russia plan to sit down together on Thursday in Shenzhen, on the sidelines of next week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have never before met as a trio, and the three countries they lead hold the world's largest nuclear arsenals.

Analysts say the moment will carry more symbolism than substance. A senior U.S. official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said the meeting is expected to serve as the start of nuclear talks among the three leaders and that no agreements are expected to be announced. Trump has said he wants to use the occasion to discuss the U.S. war with Iran and to pursue a three-way deal on nuclear stockpiles. The official said he will raise Iran with Xi and Putin but will steer clear of Ukraine.

The arms-control backdrop is stark. The last nuclear pact between Russia and the United States, New START, expired in February, lifting caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than fifty years. Russia had asked to extend it for another year. Trump refused, calling instead for a new, improved and modernized deal that includes China. The difficulty is arithmetic: Pentagon estimates put China's arsenal at more than 600 warheads, against more than 5,000 each for the U.S. and Russia, and Beijing has shown little interest in a nuclear pact.

Each host and guest has its own calculation. Xi, by agreeing to host, may see a chance to show off China's growing clout. The Kremlin gets a coveted opportunity to appear as a superpower on par with Washington and Beijing. Edgard Kagan, a former U.S. ambassador to Malaysia now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Putin's aim is to signal that he and Xi are making decisions on Ukraine, something Ukrainians and Europeans dislike.

The meeting may also overshadow the APEC summit itself, which brings 21 economies to a coastal city that grew from a small fishing village into a global technology hub within a few decades. It could complicate Beijing's messaging too. China has argued that a Cold War mentality in the West helped lead to Russia's war on Ukraine, and has criticized the U.S. for undermining international institutions and treaties in its conduct of the Iran war. Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University, said a trilateral meeting could undercut China's effort to present itself as a defender of free trade at APEC: "You sort of run counter to Chinese support of multilateralism."

The leaders know one another well in pairs. Putin and Xi have met more than 40 times since Xi became president in 2013 and call each other "dear friend." Trump and Putin have met face to face seven times, most recently in Alaska in August 2025. Trump and Xi have held eight in-person talks, including Xi's state visit to Washington in September. Trump has warmed to Xi since a truce in their short-lived trade war last year, despite differences over Iran and other tensions.

China is Russia's top trading partner, a tie that has deepened since Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022. As the EU and the West tried to isolate Russia economically, China bought more of its energy and became its main supplier of key technologies, including high-tech components for Russia's weapons industries, ignoring Western demands to stop. Before the invasion the two declared a "no-limits friendship." Beijing officially calls itself neutral, while saying Kyiv's Western allies helped provoke the war. Moscow, for its part, has repeatedly backed Beijing's policy on Taiwan.

Trump has also courted Putin even as Russia's nearly five-year war continues and Moscow deepens its military, intelligence and diplomatic partnership with Iran. He recently struck a diesel deal waiving sanctions on Moscow and allowing the sale of millions of tons of fuel. He has blamed rising energy prices on Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, though analysts say the Iran war is the main driver of higher crude prices.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced concern that the meeting could become a platform for discussing a Ukraine deal behind Kyiv's back. Some have likened the planning to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union agreed to split Germany and Berlin into four occupation zones. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the comparison, noting that anything agreed in Shenzhen cannot be enforced on others. He called a meeting of the three leaders "extremely significant," but said a global order should rest on mutual benefit and respect, not imposed views.

What to watch Thursday is whether the talks move toward a three-way nuclear framework, and how Kyiv and European capitals react to a meeting held without them.