The White House and the Kremlin say President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to meet Thursday, Nov. 19, in Shenzhen, China. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the date Saturday, a day after White House assistant press secretary Olivia Wales told reporters that Trump wants to raise nuclear arms reductions.
The meeting would take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. China's Foreign Ministry confirmed that Xi will chair the leaders' meeting in Shenzhen on Nov. 18 and 19. Asked separately about a three-way meeting, ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday that Beijing was in contact with the other parties and would release further information when available. The host announcement did not list the three-way meeting. The U.S. State Department’s account of Secretary Marco Rubio’s Wednesday call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi listed denuclearization as a goal for leader-level talks, including a possible meeting with Russia.
What changed when New START expired
The U.S. and Russia went into 2026 with a treaty that set limits on their deployed strategic nuclear forces. New START expired on Feb. 5. Under the treaty, each country was limited to 1,550 counted deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles, according to the State Department's treaty summary. The limits covered weapons counted under the treaty. Each country also held weapons outside those limits.
The agreement also provided for inspections, notifications and data exchanges to help each side verify the other's compliance. At its expiration, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on the two governments to negotiate a successor with verifiable limits. China was outside the treaty. Bringing Beijing into a new arrangement would require an agreement among three governments where the previous treaty bound two.
What's on the Shenzhen agenda
APEC's organizers say meetings begin Nov. 14 and culminate in the leaders' gathering on Nov. 19. Their published agenda covers trade, supply chains and AI. The arms-control discussion outlined by the White House would take place separately from that economic program. For U.S. businesses following the trade agenda, 178 exclusions from tariffs on certain imports from China remain in effect through Jan. 9, 2027 under a separate U.S. decision.
China says Xi will also hold bilateral meetings and host a welcome banquet. A meeting can begin negotiations on a new arms agreement, but an agreement with China would require all three governments to settle on what limits would cover and how compliance would be checked.
