US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold their first trilateral meeting next week in Shenzhen, China. The White House confirmed on Friday that the talks will take place on Thursday alongside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese city.
Nuclear weapons reductions will be among Trump's priorities, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters. She said the president considers nuclear proliferation dangerous and intends to discuss reducing arsenals worldwide. A senior US official, briefing reporters anonymously, said Trump also plans to raise the war in Iran during the meeting.
Russia's war in Ukraine, however, is unlikely to be discussed, according to US officials. The senior official said Washington is pursuing separate negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow to end that conflict. US envoys have spoken with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in recent days. Because China is not involved in that diplomatic process, the official said the trilateral meeting would not be an appropriate setting for a Ukraine discussion.
Zelensky has warned that the gathering could produce a “redistribution of spheres of influence” resembling the 1945 Yalta summit. At that meeting in the Soviet Union, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British leader Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin outlined the postwar settlement and new European territorial boundaries. The Shenzhen talks also come as the Trump administration seeks to reassert US dominance in the Western hemisphere, including through its capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.
Trump's Thursday schedule includes a separate working lunch and bilateral meeting with Xi. That will be their fourth meeting since Trump returned to the presidency last year. No separate one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin is scheduled, officials said.
US officials also said Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia chief executive over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy is not expected to feature in Trump's discussions with Xi. A second senior US official said the Nvidia situation should have no bearing on the visit.
Controls on exports of sensitive chip technology, which were central to the Nvidia scandal, are also outside the planned discussions. The second official described American export controls as national security measures developed within the administration and said Washington does not negotiate them. Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk will travel with Trump, but officials said he will not participate in the trilateral meeting.
Trump is due to depart Washington on Monday and reach the Philippines on Tuesday. He will attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations there before continuing to Shenzhen.
