Latest. Moscow confirmed the meeting on Saturday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS news agency that it had been agreed a trilateral meeting between Presidents Putin, Xi and Trump would be held on November 19, in Shenzhen as part of the APEC summit, Anadolu Agency reported; Reuters, citing RIA, carried the same confirmation. Peskov’s reported remarks set out no agenda, so the meeting’s stated business still rests on Friday’s White House account: nuclear weapons reduction and the US war with Iran, with Ukraine not planned for discussion.
Latest. Senior US officials told a press call on Friday that President Trump does not plan to raise the Nvidia matter, including the allegations against Alice Huang, with President Xi, saying the situation should not have any bearing on the trip and that the United States does not negotiate its export controls with China. On the economic side, the officials said, the Xi meeting will focus on implementation of the trade agreement. Elon Musk will accompany the president to Shenzhen, an official said, pointing to his business interests in the US-China relationship and his role as an adviser.
Latest. The White House confirmed the meeting on Friday and set out its agenda. The three leaders meet on Thursday, November 19, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen, in what the Associated Press called an unprecedented gathering of the heads of the world’s biggest nuclear powers. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters the president will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons, calling proliferation very dangerous, and a senior US official who briefed reporters said the meeting is expected to start three-way nuclear talks, with no agreements expected to be announced. Trump does not plan to discuss Ukraine at the meeting, the White House said; the US war with Iran is on the agenda. President Zelensky has expressed concern the meeting could become a platform for discussing a Ukraine deal behind Kyiv’s back. The last US-Russia nuclear pact, New START, expired in February, removing caps on the two largest arsenals for the first time in more than half a century, and Trump rejected a one-year extension in favour of a new deal that includes China, whose arsenal the Pentagon estimates at more than 600 warheads against more than 5,000 each for the United States and Russia.
The New York Post reported on Friday that the leaders of the United States, China and Russia will meet in a trilateral summit on November 19, on the occasion of the APEC leaders meeting in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19, citing a White House official, according to a Yonhap News Agency dispatch from Washington. The agenda is expected to centre on nuclear disarmament, and the official was reported as saying the Iran war and North Korea could also be discussed. Yonhap noted the meeting has not been officially announced, that President Trump has repeatedly said he wants to discuss nuclear disarmament in a three-way summit, an idea President Putin first raised alongside an end to the Ukraine war, and that China does not welcome the format, so the meeting could prove formal rather than substantive if it takes place.