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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are set to meet jointly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen next week, the White House has confirmed, marking the first time the leaders of the United States, Russia and China have sat down together in what would be an unprecedented trilateral encounter.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters that Trump would conclude his visit to China with the three-way meeting. “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,” she said.
Wales said Trump intended to put nuclear weapons on the agenda. “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,” she said. Iran is also understood to be a possible subject of discussion among the three nuclear powers, though Ukraine is not expected to feature. Moscow and Beijing had not publicly commented at the time of the White House announcement.
A senior American official, speaking anonymously to news agencies AP and Reuters, said no formal agreement was expected to emerge from the talks.
Trump is due to arrive in Shenzhen late on Wednesday for the two-day, 21-member APEC summit. Before the trilateral session, he will hold bilateral talks with Xi on Thursday — their fourth meeting since Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Earlier this year, Xi hosted both Putin and Trump in Beijing within days of each other, and welcomed Trump’s Chinese counterpart to Washington in September.
Wales framed the broader trip as strategically significant, saying it would “secure historic wins to the American people and advance America’s interests in the Indo-Pacific.” Trump’s itinerary also includes an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the Philippines on Tuesday before he travels to China.
Chinese state media reported on Friday, citing a foreign ministry spokesman, that Xi would hold “bilateral” meetings on the APEC sidelines, but made no mention of a trilateral session. Russian state news agency Tass had reported earlier this month that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were “signals confirming readiness” for such a meeting at the summit.