Trump, Xi, Putin to hold historic meeting in China: White House

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping are set to engage in a historic three-way meeting in Shenzhen, China next week, according to the White House. The summit will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the southern Chinese city.

Trump's primary focus for the trilateral talks will be reducing nuclear arsenals, a topic he believes is highly dangerous due to proliferation. Additionally, he plans to discuss the war in Iran, though Ukraine will not be a part of the conversation, as US officials have stated.

One senior US official explained that while Trump intends to broach the subject of Iran during the meeting, Russia's war in Ukraine will not be discussed. They emphasized that China is not involved in the US's negotiations with Ukraine and Kyiv, which are separate tracks of diplomacy.

The meeting echoes the 1945 Yalta summit, where US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin discussed the post-WWII settlement and territorial boundaries in Europe. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed concern that the Shenzhen meeting could lead to a modern-day "redistribution of spheres of influence."

The US administration's ambition to reassert dominance over the "Western hemisphere" through actions like capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January may not guarantee security, as splitting the world among great powers like in 1945 might not bring about the desired stability.

During the summit, Trump will hold bilateral working lunches and meetings with Xi Jinping, their fourth since the US president's return to power last year. However, he will not have a separate one-on-one session with Putin.

Other topics, such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation over an alleged affair with a Chinese spy and export controls on sensitive chip technology, are not expected to be discussed during the Trump, Xi, and Putin summit.