Politics

Trump to meet Putin and Xi in first-ever three-way summit focused on nuclear arms

Washington, D.C. • November 14, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

File photo: Reuters — President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting in October

President Donald Trump will meet jointly next week with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said Friday — the first-ever three-way sit-down between the leaders of the world's three most powerful countries.

The meeting, expected in Shenzhen on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China, will focus on nuclear non-proliferation — a subject Trump has said could produce a new agreement between the world's biggest nuclear-armed states. "The President has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world. This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous," White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters.

The last nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia expired in February, and China has been rapidly expanding its arsenal. The United States and Russia each hold more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, while China has around 500, according to Reuters.

Officials in Washington played down the chances of a deal coming out of the meeting, describing it instead as a starting point. "We do not expect to get to any kind of agreement," a senior U.S. official said. "I would characterize this as the entry point, the first conversation, certainly at the leader level, between these countries." The leaders also plan to discuss Iran, officials said.

Neither Beijing nor Moscow had officially confirmed by Friday that Xi and Putin will attend the trilateral session, and negotiations over an agenda and format were still going on, according to people familiar with the planning cited by Reuters. China's embassy in Washington said Beijing "is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state."

The three leaders arrive with very different goals, Reuters reported. Putin sees a chance to press for an end to the war in Ukraine on his terms, while Trump — whose party lost ground in last week's midterm elections and faces a Democratic-controlled Congress next year — is looking for a historic diplomatic moment. Xi, by contrast, is wary: China considers itself a nuclear underdog and has resisted arms-control talks with Washington, and Beijing has also resisted putting Ukraine on the agenda.

The idea of the three leaders cutting a deal in private has drawn uneasy comparisons — approving ones in Russia — to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union carved up postwar influence. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month: "We really don't want this to turn into 'Yalta 2, 3, 4,' with a redistribution of influence." Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that "the meeting will certainly be interesting. And, of course, it will capture the attention of people all over the world."

Trump has held high-profile summits with Putin and with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before; none produced a breakthrough, Reuters noted. Elon Musk is expected to travel with Trump to China, a senior U.S. official said, though he is not expected to attend the three-way meeting.

Sources: CNN, "Trump to meet with China's Xi and Russia's Putin at historic trilateral sit-down on nuclear non-proliferation" (Nov. 13, 2026); Reuters, "A new 'Yalta'? Trump and Putin push for a meeting that Xi is wary of hosting" (Nov. 14, 2026).