Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are planning a joint meeting in China next week, the White House has said, with nuclear weapons expected to be a focus of the talks.
The meeting is planned on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters, according to BBC News. Moscow and Beijing had not commented on the trilateral meeting at the time of the BBC report.
Nuclear weapons on the agenda
Wales said Trump intended to discuss reducing nuclear weapons, among other topics, describing their proliferation as a danger in the president’s view.
Iran could also feature in the discussions, but Ukraine was not expected to be on the agenda, the BBC reported. An unnamed senior US official told news agencies AP and Reuters that no agreement was expected from the talks, according to the BBC.
Shenzhen talks follow Philippines visit
Trump is due to attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines on Tuesday before arriving in Shenzhen late on Wednesday for the two-day APEC gathering.
He is also scheduled to hold separate talks with Xi on Thursday. The BBC described those bilateral discussions as their fourth meeting since Trump returned to office in 2025. Wales said the trilateral meeting would conclude his China visit.
Xi hosted Putin and Trump separately in Beijing earlier this year, while Trump welcomed Xi to Washington in September. The planned three-way meeting would bring the leaders together in a different diplomatic format.
Chinese state media said on Friday that Xi would hold bilateral meetings during APEC, citing a foreign ministry spokesman, but did not announce trilateral talks. Earlier this month, Russia’s Tass news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying there were signals of readiness for such discussions, the BBC reported.
