Trump, Putin and Xi plan historic joint meeting in China next week, White House says

President Donald Trump will meet jointly next week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the APEC summit in China, the White House confirmed Friday. The historic trilateral sit-down will focus on nuclear non-proliferation, a priority Trump has said could yield a new agreement among the world's three largest nuclear-armed states. "The President has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world. This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous," White House spokesman Olivia Wales told reporters.

The meeting comes after the last nuclear arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia expired in February, leaving no active bilateral framework limiting the two largest arsenals. Trump has previously expressed interest in a three-way deal that includes China, whose nuclear stockpile is growing but remains smaller than those of the U.S. and Russia.

U.S. officials downplayed the prospect of striking a new deal immediately, framing the talks as an opening conversation. "We do not expect to get to any kind of agreement," a senior U.S. official said. "I would characterize this as the entry point, the first conversation, certainly at the leader level, between these countries. So this is the beginning of hopefully a conversation that can be productive going forward."

A senior U.S. official said Elon Musk is expected to travel with Trump but is not expected to attend the trilateral meeting. As of Friday, Beijing and Moscow had not officially confirmed their leaders' participation in the summit, leaving the final composition of the meeting uncertain.