Trump to Discuss ‘Reduction of Nuclear Weapons’ With Xi and Putin in First-Ever Three-Way Summit

President Donald Trump will sit down Thursday with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen, in what would be the first joint meeting of the leaders of the world’s three largest nuclear powers.

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters Friday that “President Trump will conclude his visit to China with a trilateral meeting between the president of the United States, the president of the People’s Republic of China and the president of the Russian Federation.” The talks will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese tech hub.

“The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world, whose proliferation President Trump believes is very dangerous,” Wales said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the plans Saturday, telling the Russian state news agency TASS, “An agreement has been reached to hold a trilateral meeting on the 19th between President Putin, President Xi, and President Trump. This meeting will take place in Shenzhen on the sidelines of the APEC summit.”

China has not publicly confirmed the three-way session. Chinese state media reported Friday that Xi would hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the summit, but it has not reported on a meeting with both Trump and Putin, the BBC reported.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump also intends to discuss the war in Iran, but not Russia’s war in Ukraine, which the official described as a separate “track” that does not include China. No agreement is expected, the official said, describing the session as an “entry point” and “the first conversation” on reducing nuclear arsenals, according to NBC News.

That agenda tracks with what Trump said Nov. 8, when he told reporters he expected the three-way meeting, as Conservative Daily News reported. “One of the meetings, I think, will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that’ll be interesting,” Trump said. “We’re talking a lot of things, including denuclearization, but we’ll be talking a lot of things. We’re trying to end the war in Iran.”

The last nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, New START, expired in February, leaving the world’s two largest arsenals without caps for the first time in more than 50 years. Trump rejected Russia’s proposal to extend the pact for another year and has called for “a new, improved and modernized” deal that includes China. Russia holds the most nuclear warheads, followed by the United States and then China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Al Jazeera reported. Pentagon estimates put China’s stockpile at more than 600 warheads, far smaller than the more than 5,000 held by each of the United States and Russia, NBC News reported.

Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief, will be the only business leader in the official U.S. delegation, a senior U.S. official said, though he will not take part in the leaders’ meeting. Other American executives are expected to attend the APEC summit on their own.

Trump is also scheduled to hold separate bilateral talks with Xi on Thursday. There is no one-on-one meeting with Putin on the schedule, officials said. Before arriving in Shenzhen late Wednesday, Trump will attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines on Tuesday.

Peskov has called a meeting of the three leaders “extremely significant,” while dismissing comparisons to the 1945 Yalta Conference, NBC News reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed concern that the session could become a venue to discuss Ukraine without Kyiv, according to NBC News and Al Jazeera.

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