Trump, Xi and Putin Plan Unprecedented Three-Way Meeting on APEC Sidelines in Shenzhen

The White House confirmed on Friday that President Donald Trump, China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin plan to sit down together on Thursday, on the sidelines of next week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China's technology hub. No meeting has ever brought together the leaders of the three biggest nuclear powers at one table. Analysts say expectations for a breakthrough are low and that the occasion will carry more symbolism than substance.

The backdrop is tangled. Trump has warmed to Xi since the two reached a truce in their short-lived trade war last year, despite disagreements over the U.S. war with Iran and other friction between the two largest economies. He has also courted Putin, even as the Russian leader presses a war in Ukraine that is nearly five years old and as Moscow deepens its military, intelligence and diplomatic partnership with Iran.

A senior U.S. official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said Trump intends to raise the Iran war with Xi and Putin but will steer clear of Ukraine. Trump's stated aim is a three-way agreement on nuclear stockpiles. The last arms pact between Washington and Moscow, New START, expired in February, lifting caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than 50 years. Russia had asked to extend it another year; Trump refused and called instead for what he described as a new, improved and modernized deal that includes China.

The official described Thursday's meeting as the start of what he hoped would be a conversation on disarmament that could prove productive, and said no agreements are expected to be announced. The numbers explain Beijing's reluctance. Pentagon estimates put China's arsenal at more than 600 warheads, while the United States and Russia each hold an estimated 5,000 or more. China has shown little appetite for a nuclear pact. Administration officials concede it is a hard subject for Beijing, though the official said it was time for China to step up to the adult table.

Each leader may find something in the gathering. Xi, as host, gets a chance to display China's rising clout, and to showcase a coastal city that grew from a small fishing village into a global technology and economic center within a few decades. The APEC summit brings 21 economies to Shenzhen, and the trilateral could well overshadow it. For the Kremlin, the meeting offers a chance to present Russia 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 key goal was signaling that the three leaders are making decisions on Ukraine, something Ukrainians and Europeans dislike.

Beijing may have the most to weigh. The meeting could blur China's argument that a Cold War mentality in the West helped lead to Russia's invasion, and its criticism that the U.S. has undermined international institutions and treaties through its conduct of the Iran war. Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University, said it cuts against Chinese support for multilateralism and could undercut Beijing's effort to cast itself as a defender of free trade at APEC.

The leaders know one another well. Xi and Putin 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. China is Russia's top trading partner, a tie that has grown since the 2022 invasion: it has bought more Russian energy and become Moscow's main supplier of key technologies, including high-tech components for weapons industries, ignoring Western demands to stop. Before the invasion the two declared a "no-limits friendship." China calls itself neutral on Ukraine while blaming Kyiv's Western allies for provoking Russia. Moscow in turn has repeatedly backed Beijing's position on Taiwan.

Trump recently struck a diesel deal with Russia, waiving sanctions to allow sales of millions of tons of fuel. He has blamed surging energy prices on Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, though analysts attribute the rise in crude prices mostly to the Iran war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced concern that the meeting could become a forum for discussing a Ukraine deal behind Kyiv's back. Some have compared 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 whatever is agreed in Shenzhen cannot be imposed on others. He called such a meeting extremely significant but said the vision for global order is that no one imposes a particular view, and that it should rest on mutual benefit and respect. Whether Thursday yields even the outline of a nuclear arms framework is the thing to watch.