Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will meet on Thursday 19 November in Shenzhen, China, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. The White House confirmed the trilateral on Friday and the Kremlin announced the agreement on the date on Saturday. “An agreement has been reached to hold a trilateral meeting on November 19,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Tass. It will be the first three-way summit between these leaders.
What Trump wants to discuss in Shenzhen
The American president wants to talk to Xi and Putin about the war in Iran and the reduction of nuclear arsenals. Washington considers the summit a first step to open a discussion on arms control. Expectations for an immediate result are low. A senior administration official told Reuters that the United States does not expect to reach a deal as early as Shenzhen.
The confrontation comes nine months after the expiration of New Start, the last treaty that limited the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. Trump also wants to involve China in a possible new agreement. According to estimates from Sipri, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as of January 2026, Russia had 5,420 nuclear warheads, the United States 5,042 and China 620. Together, the three countries held about 91 percent of the world’s estimated warheads, including those retired and awaiting dismantling.
The fear of Kiev
According to a senior US official quoted by the Associated Press, Trump intends to discuss Iran without addressing the war in Ukraine in the three-way talks. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fears that the summit could become an opportunity to discuss an agreement without Kiev. In recent days the Wall Street Journal, reported by Reuters, had reported that Putin had proposed using the trilateral to talk about the end of the war.
The meeting will be held on the second day of the Apec summit, which brings together the leaders of the 21 economies of the forum in Shenzhen on 18 and 19 November. The topics of the event include trade tensions and the impact of artificial intelligence on the economy. Elon Musk will accompany Trump to China, although, according to a US official quoted by Al Jazeera, he will remain out of the three-way talks.