The White House said Friday that Trump, Putin and Xi will hold a three-way meeting in Shenzhen, China, on the sidelines of next week’s APEC summit. According to the announcement, Ukraine is excluded from the Trump Putin Xi meeting.
Dawn describes the planned talks as the first three-way meeting between the leaders of the United States, Russia and China.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Trump will discuss reducing nuclear weapons, which he believes is very dangerous to proliferate, according to Euronews. US officials told Euronews that Trump is expected to raise the Iran war at the trilateral meeting but not Ukraine.
A senior US official said Ukraine talks run on a separate track with Kyiv and Moscow, and that China is not part of them. The same official said no agreement was expected to follow the talks. That account was cited by AP and Reuters and reported by BBC World.
Trump is due to attend an ASEAN summit in the Philippines on Tuesday before travelling to Shenzhen. Elon Musk will accompany him but will not join the meeting with Xi and Putin, officials said, according to Euronews.
Trump will also hold a bilateral working lunch and meeting with Xi on Thursday. According to Dawn, it would be their fourth meeting since Trump returned to power.
The planned talks come as a US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty expired in February, and the UN has urged both sides to agree a new framework without delay. Beijing has also been a crucial trading partner for Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and is the largest buyer of Tehran’s oil.
Zelensky warned that the Shenzhen meeting could be a Yalta-like "redistribution of spheres of influence" for the 21st century, recalling the 1945 Yalta summit, according to Dawn.
Moscow and Beijing have not commented on the reported trilateral meeting, according to Euronews and BBC World. BBC World reported that Chinese state media said Xi would take part in bilateral talks at APEC but has not reported the trilateral meeting. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier cited "signals confirming readiness" for such talks, but no official confirmation from Moscow or Beijing is in the sources.
The Iran discussion is described as expected by Euronews and Dawn, but only as possible by BBC World, and no on-record official confirmation was given. The reporting relies mainly on White House and anonymous US official briefings, with no agenda details or outcomes from Moscow or Beijing.
Trump leaves Washington on Monday for the Philippines and attends the ASEAN summit on Tuesday before reaching Shenzhen. The APEC leaders’ meeting runs from 18 to 19 November, with bilateral talks with Xi on Thursday, and the trilateral meeting is due to conclude the visit.
Sources
This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.