White House Confirms Unprecedented Trump-Xi-Putin Trilateral Summit: Nuclear In, Ukraine Out - ZH
President Trump sat down with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen on Thursday, the White House said Friday, in what US officials described as the first trilateral meeting between the leaders of the world's three major nuclear powers.
According to the New York Post, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters in a call on Friday evening that "President Trump will conclude his visit to China with a trilateral meeting" on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which China is hosting on November 18-19. "The president has made it clear that, among other issues, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world," Wales said. "This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous. ".
Officials said they did not expect the leaders to reach a concrete agreement, describing the meeting as an initial conversation, and Trump and Putin would not hold a separate one-on-one meeting, officials told reporters.
Trump previewed the meeting on November 8, speaking to reporters before flying back to Washington from Florida: “One of the meetings, I think, will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that will be interesting. We will talk about many things, including denuclearization," he said and added: "We are trying to end the war in Iran. ".
For Trump, the summit is an opportunity to propose something he has been talking about for years. "There is no reason for us to build a completely new nuclear weapon. We already have so many," he said in the Oval Office in February 2025. "You can destroy the world 50 times, 100 times. His proposal to the US, China and Russia then: "Let's cut our military budget in half. ".
New START, the latest treaty limiting the strategic arsenals of the US and Russia, expired in February.