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

The White House confirmed on Friday, November 13, 2026, that Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin plan to sit down together on November 19 in Shenzhen, on the sidelines of next week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. No gathering of the leaders of the world's three biggest nuclear powers has happened before. Analysts quoted in the reporting expect it to deliver more symbolism than substance.

The backdrop is awkward for all three. Trump has warmed to Xi after the two sides reached a truce in their short-lived trade war last year, despite differences over the U.S. war with Iran and other frictions between the largest economies. He has also worked on his relationship with Putin, even as the Russian leader presses a war in Ukraine now nearly five years old and 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 last goal has a recent history. The last nuclear arms 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 the deal for another year; Trump refused and called instead for a new, improved and modernised agreement that includes China. But the Pentagon estimates Beijing holds more than 600 warheads, against more than 5,000 each for the U.S. and Russia, and China has shown little interest in a pact.

Edgard Kagan, a former U.S. ambassador to Malaysia now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said he would be shocked if any joint statement mentioned denuclearisation. He sees Xi as possibly calculating that hosting lets him show off China's growing clout and prestige, and says the Kremlin gets a coveted chance to pose as a superpower equal to Washington and Beijing. For Putin, Kagan said, the key is signalling that he and Xi are talking with Trump in a way that suggests decisions on Ukraine are being made, something Ukrainians and Europeans dislike. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced concern that the meeting could become a venue for discussing a Ukraine deal behind Kyiv's back.

The trilateral could overshadow the summit itself, which brings 21 economies to a city that grew from a small fishing village into a global technology and economic hub within a few decades. It could also complicate China's messaging. Beijing argues that a Cold War mentality in the West helped lead to Russia's invasion and 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 a three-way meeting runs counter to China's support for multilateralism and could undercut its effort to present itself as a defender of free trade at APEC.

The leaders know each other 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.

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 Russian weapons industries, ignoring Western demands to stop. Before the invasion, Xi and Putin declared a "no-limits friendship." China officially calls itself neutral while saying Kyiv's Western allies helped provoke the war. Moscow, for its part, has repeatedly backed Beijing's position on Taiwan.

Trump has also recently struck a diesel deal with Russia, waiving sanctions to allow the sale of millions of tons of fuel. He blames surging energy prices on Ukrainian strikes 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 U.S., 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 rejected the comparison, saying agreements reached in Shenzhen could not be imposed on others. What to watch on November 19 is whether any joint statement touches nuclear arms control, and how Kyiv and European capitals react to whatever is said about Ukraine.