US President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen, China, on November 19 for three-way talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, the White House announced on Friday.
The meeting will focus on nuclear arms reductions and the US war with Iran, although American officials have cautioned against expecting an immediate agreement.
White House assistant press secretary Olivia Wales confirmed that Trump intends to discuss reducing nuclear weapons.
A senior US official, speaking anonymously to reporters, described the meeting as an opening discussion rather than negotiations expected to produce an immediate agreement.
The talks follow the February 5 expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last nuclear arms-control agreement between Washington and Moscow.
Russia had proposed maintaining the treaty's principal limits for another year, but no agreement was reached.
New START restricted each country's accountable deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, rather than limiting their entire nuclear inventories, according to the Arms Control Association.
Russia suspended implementation of the agreement in February 2023.
China's smaller nuclear arsenal presents a significant obstacle to Trump's proposed trilateral arrangement.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in June that China possessed approximately 620 nuclear warheads as of January 2026.
It also estimated that Russia and the United States together held around 83 percent of the world's stockpiled nuclear warheads.
Beijing has previously opposed joining such negotiations.
In an April 2026 policy document, China's Foreign Ministry described demands for its participation in trilateral nuclear disarmament talks at the current stage as "not fair, reasonable, or realistic", citing the disparity between its arsenal and those of Washington and Moscow.
US officials said Trump intends to discuss the war with Iran during the meeting but does not plan to raise Russia's war in Ukraine.
Washington is pursuing separate negotiations involving Kyiv and Moscow, according to a senior administration official, who said China was not participating in that diplomatic process.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed concern that the gathering could provide an opportunity to discuss Ukraine's future without Kyiv's involvement.
The planned meeting has drawn comparisons with the 1945 Yalta Conference, where American, British and Soviet leaders discussed arrangements for postwar Europe.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed those comparisons, arguing that agreements reached in Shenzhen could not be imposed on other countries.
He nevertheless described the proposed gathering as highly significant, according to the Associated Press.
Trump is also scheduled to hold a separate bilateral meeting and working lunch with Xi on November 19.
US officials said no individual meeting with Putin was currently planned.
The trilateral talks will take place during APEC's November 18-19 leaders' meeting, which brings together representatives of 21 economies.
According to the APEC Secretariat, China's priorities for the gathering include trade, innovation and regional economic cooperation.