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

On Friday, November 13, the White House confirmed that Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will sit down together on Thursday, November 19, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China's technology hub. It would be the first joint meeting of the leaders of the world's three biggest nuclear powers. Analysts say expectations for breakthroughs are low, and that the occasion will carry more symbolism than substance.

The setting is a complicated one. Trump has embraced Xi warmly since the two sides reached a truce in their short-lived trade war last year, despite disagreements over the US war with Iran and other tensions between the two economic giants. He has also worked to build a relationship with Putin, even as the Russian leader presses on with a war in Ukraine that is nearly five years old and as Moscow deepens its military, intelligence and diplomatic ties with Iran. Trump says the meeting is a chance to discuss the Iran war and to pursue a three-way agreement on nuclear arsenals.

That goal runs into hard numbers. The last nuclear arms 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. Trump turned down Russia's request to extend it for another year and called instead for a new, improved and modernised deal that includes China. But Pentagon estimates put China's arsenal at more than 600 warheads, while the US and Russia are each believed to hold more than 5,000. With that gap, Beijing has shown little interest in a nuclear pact. Edgard Kagan, a former US ambassador to Malaysia now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said he would be shocked by any joint statement that mentioned denuclearisation.

Each capital may be reading the moment differently. Beijing appears the least certain about the summit's value, though as host Xi may see a chance to show off China's growing clout. For the Kremlin, Kagan said, the meeting is a coveted opportunity to pose as a superpower on par with Washington and Beijing, and to signal that the leaders are making decisions on Ukraine, something Ukrainians and Europeans dislike. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced concern that the meeting could become a platform for discussing a Ukraine deal behind Kyiv's back.

The trilateral could also overshadow APEC itself, which brings 21 economies to a coastal city that grew from a small fishing village into a global technology and economic hub within a few decades. Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University, said it could undercut China's push to present itself as a defender of free trade, adding that it runs counter to Chinese support for multilateralism. It could also muddy Beijing's argument that a Cold War mentality in the West helped cause Russia's invasion, and its criticism that the US has undermined international institutions and treaties in the way it has waged war on Iran.

The leaders are hardly strangers 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. China is Russia's top trading partner, a relationship that has strengthened since Russia's 2022 invasion: Beijing has increased purchases of Russian energy and become Moscow's principal supplier of key technologies, including high-tech components for weapons industries, ignoring Western demands to stop. The two declared a "no-limits friendship" before the war, and China officially calls itself neutral while blaming Kyiv's Western allies for provoking Russia. Moscow in turn backs 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 rise in crude prices stems mostly from the Iran war.

Some have compared the planned meeting to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where leaders of the US, Britain and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Germany and Berlin into four occupation zones and finalised plans for the United Nations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the comparison, noting that any agreements reached in Shenzhen cannot be enforced on others. What to watch next week is whether the meeting touches Ukraine talks, and whether China's free-trade message holds at APEC.