Trump, Xi, Putin to hold trilateral talks in China: White House

US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Russian President Vladimir Putin will convene trilateral discussions in China next week, according to a statement from the White House on Friday. The primary topic of the meeting, to be held on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen, is anticipated to be the potential reduction of global nuclear arsenals. This would be the first such trilateral dialogue among the three leaders.

While all three Presidents attended the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in 2019, they did not meet collectively. The prospects of a new nuclear arms treaty are promising, although the White House has downplayed expectations for a concrete outcome or agreement. Instead, the meeting is viewed as a starting point for negotiations.

President Trump has persistently advocated for a new nuclear arms control agreement to supersede the New START treaty, which expired in February and limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and launchers held by the United States and Russia. He has also long sought to include China in future nuclear arms control deals. In late 2025, Trump made headlines by announcing plans to resume US nuclear weapons testing, though it later became clear that the tests would not involve nuclear explosions.