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

The White House confirmed on Friday that Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin plan to meet together on Thursday, on the sidelines of next week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China's technology hub. It would be the first gathering of the leaders of the world's three biggest nuclear powers in one room.

Analysts say the moment will carry more symbolism than substance. A senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the meeting is expected to serve as a start to nuclear talks among the three and that no agreements are expected to be announced. Trump plans to raise the U.S. war with Iran with Xi and Putin, the official said, but intends to steer away from Ukraine.

The arms question is the backdrop. The last nuclear pact between Russia and the United States, New START, expired in February, removing caps on the two largest arsenals for the first time in more than fifty years. Russia had proposed extending it for another year. Trump refused and called 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, while the United States and Russia each hold more than 5,000. With stockpiles that dwarf its own, Beijing has shown little interest in a nuclear pact.

Each leader arrives with a different calculation. Xi, as host, may see a chance to display China's growing clout and prestige. The summit brings 21 economies to Shenzhen, a coastal city that grew from a small fishing village into a global technology and economic center within a few decades. For the Kremlin, the meeting is a coveted chance to look like 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 was signaling that he and Xi are talking with Trump in a way that suggests they are making decisions on Ukraine, something Ukrainians and Europeans dislike.

Beijing appeared least certain about the value of the summit, and it may pay a price. Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University, said a trilateral of this kind runs counter to China's support for multilateralism and could undercut its effort to present itself at APEC as a defender of free trade. It could also muddy China's argument that a Cold War mentality in the West helped drive Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and its criticism that the U.S. has undermined international institutions and treaties in the way it has waged war on Iran.

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 September state visit to Washington. Trump has warmed to Xi since the truce ending their short-lived trade war last year, despite differences over Iran and other tensions. He has also courted Putin even as Russia presses its nearly five-year-old war in Ukraine and deepens its military, intelligence and diplomatic ties with Iran.

China is Russia's top trading partner, a bond that has tightened since the 2022 invasion. 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 its weapons industries, ignoring Western demands to stop. Xi and Putin declared a "no-limits friendship" before the war; China officially calls itself neutral while arguing that Kyiv's Western allies helped provoke Russia. Moscow in turn has repeatedly backed Beijing's policy on Taiwan. Trump recently struck a diesel deal with Russia, waiving sanctions to allow the sale of millions of tons of fuel. He has blamed surging energy prices on Ukrainian attacks 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 venue for discussing a Ukraine deal behind Kyiv's back. Some have compared the planning to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the leaders of the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union agreed to split Germany and Berlin into four occupation zones and finalized plans for the United Nations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the comparison, noting that any agreements reached in Shenzhen cannot be enforced on others. He called the meeting extremely significant but said global order should rest on mutual benefit and respect, not imposed views.

What to watch Thursday is whether the talks produce even a procedural step toward a successor to New START, and how Iran and Ukraine are handled, given Kyiv's worry about being sidelined.