White House confirms first Trump-Xi-Putin trilateral, set for Shenzhen on Thursday

The White House confirmed on Friday that Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will hold the first three-way meeting between the leaders of the United States, Russia and China, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen next week.

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the talks, set for Thursday, will cover nuclear weapons. Trump "will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world," she said. "This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous."

Trump is also set to bring up Iran, but is not expected to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine, US officials said. On a call with reporters, they said the president does intend to raise Iran with Xi and Putin.

Washington has a "whole other track" of negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, the officials said, adding that "China is not really a part of that track".

The meeting calls back to the 1945 Yalta summit, where the Allied leaders laid out the post-WWII settlement and new territorial boundaries in Europe. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned the Shenzhen talks could be a Yalta-like "redistribution of spheres of influence".

Trump will hold a bilateral working lunch and meeting with Xi on Thursday, their fourth meeting since the US president's return to power last year. He is not scheduled to have a separate one-on-one with Putin.

US officials said Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang's resignation over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy is not expected to come up in Trump's meetings with Xi. Washington also does not plan to discuss export controls on sensitive chip technology, which were at the heart of the Nvidia scandal.

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk will accompany Trump to China but will not be involved in the meeting with Xi and Putin, the officials said.

Trump will leave Washington on Monday and arrive in the Philippines on Tuesday for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations before heading to Shenzhen.