Trump Xi Putin summit likely at APEC in Shenzhen

A Trump Xi Putin summit is now likely on the sidelines of the APEC leaders' meeting in Shenzhen on 18 and 19 November, after US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he expects to sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Reuters and the Japan Times reported.

If it happens, it would be the first time the three leaders have held formal talks together. Each has met the others separately, but never as a group of three.

What Trump said

Speaking to reporters before flying back to Washington from Florida, Trump said one of his meetings in China would be with Putin and Xi. "We're talking a lot of things, including denuclearization, but we'll be talking a lot of things. We're trying to end the war in Iran," he said, according to Reuters.

Trump said in October that he was open to three-way arms control talks focused on nuclear weapons. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Putin wants to use a trilateral meeting to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

The Bangkok Post noted that the president will travel to Shenzhen, China's southern tech hub, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Beijing and Moscow confirm Trump Xi Putin summit talks

Both China and Russia have said preparations are under way. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters last week that China "is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state," Al Jazeera and Politico reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said work was under way to coordinate the meeting and that he hoped it would be finalised in the coming days.

Nothing has been formally announced, and no agenda has been published.

Limits on what a meeting can achieve

Analysts quoted by Al Jazeera expect limited results. Several obstacles stand out:

• Nuclear talks: China's foreign ministry said last month it would be "neither fair, reasonable nor realistic" to ask China to join trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage.
• Ukraine: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that when he raised Ukraine with Xi in Beijing on 30 October, Xi told him the three leaders would probably meet in Shenzhen, but not to discuss Ukraine, which Xi called a European conflict.
• Iran: the US-Iran war that began with US-Israeli strikes in late February has largely paused, but no peace deal has been signed.

One Moscow-based analyst told Al Jazeera that simply being at the table would give Putin a valuable photo opportunity, and that if nothing concrete came out of it before Christmas, it would be "just a photo op". European capitals worry that talks on Ukraine could happen without Kyiv or Europe present, Politico reported.

A weakened Trump heads to Asia

The trip comes days after Trump's Republican Party lost control of Congress in last week's midterm elections, as covered in our report on the midterm defeat. Trump has admitted the unpopular Iran war played a part in the result.

In a CNN interview on Sunday, Trump said renewed fighting with Iran was "highly unlikely", but that it depended on Tehran signing "a very strong agreement", the Bangkok Post reported. He was due to meet Qatar's prime minister, a key mediator, at the White House on Monday. Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said mediation travel had paused since the election. Earlier rounds of Iran-US talks ended without a breakthrough.

For Thailand, which is one of APEC's 21 member economies and hosted the forum in Bangkok in 2022, the Shenzhen summit is a major regional event. A meeting of the three leaders there could affect trade, energy prices and security across Asia.

Al Jazeera's analysis of what the meeting could mean has more background.

Image: the Shenzhen skyline, host city for the APEC meeting and a possible Trump Xi Putin summit. Photo by Fumikas Sagisavas via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.