White House Confirms Unprecedented Trump-Xi-Putin Trilateral Summit: Nukes In, Ukraine Out

President Trump will sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen on Thursday, the White House said Friday, in what US officials described as the first three-way meeting between the leaders of the world's three largest nuclear powers. 

According to the NY Post, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters on a call Friday evening that "President Trump will conclude his visit to China with a trilateral meeting" on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which China hosts Nov. 18-19. "The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world," Wales said. "This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous."

Officials said they do not expect the leaders to reach any concrete agreement, describing the sit-down as an initial conversation, and Trump and Putin will not hold a separate one-on-one meeting, officials told reporters.

Trump previewed the meeting on Nov. 8, speaking to reporters before flying back to Washington from Florida: "One of the meetings, I think, will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that'll be interesting. We'll talk a lot of things, including denuclearization," he said, adding: "We're trying to end the war in Iran."

.@POTUS: "I'm going to be going to China... One of the meetings, I think, will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that'll be interesting. We'll talk a lot of things, including denuclearization." pic.twitter.com/X03kk6DJpB

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 9, 2026

For Trump, the summit is a chance to pitch something he's talked about for years. "There's no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many," he said in the Oval Office in February 2025. "You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over." His proposal for the US, China and Russia then: "Let's cut our military budget in half."

New START, the last treaty capping US and Russian strategic arsenals, lapsed on Feb. 5 without a replacement, and as we reported at the time, the two countries now have no limits on their nuclear weapons for the first time in decades.

Trump had said in January that "I think it would be appropriate for the Chinese" to be part of any replacement. Beijing answered the day after the treaty lapsed: "China will not take part in nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage," said Shen Jian, its ambassador for disarmament affairs, adding that Washington and Moscow have "special and primary responsibilities" to cut their arsenals first, Arms Control Today reported.

A senior US official said Trump also intends to raise his war with Iran with both leaders: "I think the president does intend to talk about Iran in the trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin."

Officials said Washington runs a separate negotiating track on Ukraine with Kyiv and Moscow. "China is not really a part of that track, so it doesn't seem appropriate to have the Ukraine discussion there," a second official said.

The three-way meeting was Putin's idea: as we noted last month, he floated it in an Oct. 9 call with Trump as a venue to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, with Zelensky not invited, and the Kremlin pointed to the APEC sidelines in Shenzhen. Trump said he "would do it" if Xi was on board, and steered it toward denuclearization. Within days, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said China was already preparing it, and on Oct. 25 he said that "Moscow, Beijing, and Washington are in principle ready to hold it."

According to the White House's version, Trump isn't planning to discuss the war in Ukraine. Moscow, however, describes it differently: on Nov. 12, a day before the White House briefing, Ushakov told reporters that Putin would take up the settlement of the war with Trump when the two meet in Shenzhen: "we will continue to discuss the full range of issues related to the settlement," he said, according to RIA Novosti.

Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in Moscow this week, where Ushakov rebuffed Washington's push to bring the Europeans to the table, after the latest round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Nov. 3 that "work is under way on organising such a meeting." Three days later, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said China "is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state," the first time Beijing confirmed the talks.

Analysts the AP spoke to doubt it will go further than the photo. "China wants the image but not the costs," said Sun Yun of the Stimson Center. Craig Singleton put it more bluntly: "The spectacle may be historic without producing anything particularly consequential."

Trump also has a working lunch and a bilateral meeting with Xi on Thursday, their fourth meeting since Trump returned to the White House, on his second trip to China this year, with a trade truce that runs out in January hanging over it. China this week extended its pause on rare earth export controls to Jan. 10, though, as we noted, the metal squeezing buyers hardest was never covered by it.

Chip curbs aren't on the table: "We do not negotiate American export controls," the second official said, days after Beijing accused Washington of using the Nvidia spy scandal to justify a chip "blockade." Officials also don't expect Trump to raise the allegations against Alice Huang, the Chinese tech executive accused of spying whose alleged affair with Jensen Huang preceded his exit as Nvidia's CEO, which we have covered.

Trump leaves Washington on Monday for the ASEAN summit in Manila before flying on to Shenzhen. Elon Musk will travel with him but will not take part in the meeting with Xi and Putin, officials said.

When they meet Thursday, the three men who control the bulk of the world's nuclear warheads will sit at one table with no treaty left between any of them.