President Donald Trump will sit down jointly with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin next week, the White House said on Friday, in the first three-way meeting of the leaders of the world’s three largest nuclear powers.
The talks take place in Shenzhen on Thursday, November 19, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The focus will be nuclear arms reduction, a subject Trump has pushed since his first term.
A senior US official told reporters the White House does not expect the meeting to produce an agreement. The official described it as an entry point, a first conversation that could lead to negotiations on a new arms control framework.
The last treaty limiting the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, New START, expired in February, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers without a binding cap for the first time in decades. Officials also flagged concern about China’s nuclear arsenal, which they said is growing faster than any other country’s.
Trump will first hold a bilateral meeting and working lunch with Xi on Thursday afternoon. The trilateral meeting follows at the end of his China visit. Beijing and Moscow had yet to confirm their participation when the White House announced the meeting on Friday.
Trump also plans to raise the war in Iran during the three-way talks. The war in Ukraine is not on the agenda, according to the official.
Source: CNN
