Trump, Xi and Putin plan an unprecedented meeting on the sidelines of APEC, officials say

Detailed summary

It is not anticipated that any sort of agreement will come from the trilateral meeting, according to a senior U.S. official, who described the session as an “entry point” and “the first conversation,” pointing to the reduction of nuclear arsenals as a key topic.

President Donald Trump will meet with the leaders of China and Russia on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzen, China’s tech hub, next week, an unprecedented gathering of the heads of the world’s biggest nuclear powers.

“President Trump will conclude his visit to China with a trilateral meeting between the president of the United States, the president of the People’s Republic of China and the president of the Russian Federation,” Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said in a call with reporters Friday night. “The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world, whose proliferation President Trump believes is very dangerous.”

It is not anticipated that any sort of agreement will come from the trilateral meeting, according to a senior U.S. official, who described the session as an “entry point” and “the first conversation,” pointing to the reduction of nuclear arsenals as a key topic.

“We do think it’s time for China to sort of step up, you know, to the adults’ table, if you will, and have adult conversations about adult things,” the senior U.S. official said about the issue of nuclear weapons.

Beijing’s arsenal of more than 600 warheads, according to Pentagon estimates, is far smaller than inventories held by the U.S. and Russia, each estimated to have more than 5,000 warheads. With U.S. and Russian arsenals dwarfing its stockpile, China has shown little interest in developing a nuclear pact.

The last nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States expired in February, removing caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century. When that treaty — known as New START — expired, Trump rejected a call by Russia to extend the two-country deal for another year and called for “a new, improved and modernized” deal that includes China.

The three-way summit with Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin comes at a complicated moment in…

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