Trump to Meet Xi and Putin in First Three-Way Summit
The White House says Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen on November 19, with nuclear-arms reductions and the Iran war on the agenda.
President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen, China, on Thursday, November 19, in what the White House described as the first formal three-way meeting among the leaders.
The meeting is planned for the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales announced the gathering on Friday, November 13, according to CBS News. Reports from the Associated Press and Reuters independently described the same planned summit.
Nuclear arms and Iran are on the agenda
Wales said Trump intends to discuss reducing nuclear weapons. “The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world,” she said, according to CBS News, adding that Trump views proliferation as dangerous.
A senior U.S. official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Trump also plans to raise the war in Iran. The administration has not announced a nuclear-arms agreement or a negotiating framework, so the scheduled discussion should not be treated as evidence that the three governments have agreed on reductions.
Officials said Russia’s war in Ukraine is not expected to be part of the trilateral agenda. One official said Washington is handling that conflict through a separate diplomatic track involving Kyiv and Moscow and that China is not part of those talks. That explanation describes the administration’s current plan; an agenda can still change before or during a leaders’ meeting.
Trump also plans separate talks with Xi
Trump is also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting and working lunch with Xi on November 19. U.S. officials said sensitive technology export controls are not expected to be negotiated during the China meetings, describing those controls as national-security decisions made by the administration.
Elon Musk is expected to accompany Trump on the China trip but will not take part in the meeting with Xi and Putin, officials said. Trump is due to leave Washington on Monday, November 16, and attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines on Tuesday before traveling to Shenzhen.
A proposal has become a confirmed plan
The summit is a material development from earlier reporting. On October 19, the Kremlin said a possible Trump-Putin-Xi meeting at the November APEC gathering had been raised but not agreed. TrumpInsight reported that tentative status at the time. The new White House announcement supplies a date, location and stated agenda for the meeting.
The planned format places the leaders of the world’s three largest nuclear powers at one table, but the announcement itself does not guarantee an agreement or even a joint statement. The practical outcome will depend on whether the leaders move beyond broad discussion and authorize follow-up negotiations with defined subjects and officials.
What remains unsettled
The White House has outlined topics but has not released a detailed public agenda, proposed arms limits or a schedule for subsequent talks. The governments of China and Russia may also describe their priorities differently as the summit approaches.
For now, the verified development is the meeting itself: Trump, Xi and Putin are scheduled to hold their first formal trilateral discussion in Shenzhen on November 19, with nuclear risks and Iran among the issues the U.S. side says Trump will raise.
Sources and image credit
- CBS News — Trump, Putin and Xi expected to hold first formal trilateral meeting
- Associated Press — Trump, Xi and Putin plan an unprecedented meeting during APEC
- Reuters — Trump plans to raise nuclear-arms cuts with Putin and Xi
- Image source — Official White House photograph on Wikimedia Commons