President Donald Trump said on Monday he wants to hold a trilateral summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in China to discuss “denuclearization.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said such a meeting, which would be the first time the three leaders met outside of a larger multi-leader gathering, would be a “very positive thing for the world.” The U.S. President added: “If they’d like to have it, I think it would be held in China.”
The three leaders are expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next month in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese tech hub.
Trump was responding to Putin’s reported proposal for a three-way meeting with Trump and Xi. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with discussions, that Putin suggested the idea to Trump in an Oct. 9 call, seeking the summit to potentially broker an end to the war Russia started in Ukraine more than four years ago, without having a Ukrainian representative at the table.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed to the Journal that discussions of a potential meeting were underway, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also suggested publicly that talks about a meeting were happening.
Trump, however, said that a trilateral summit would focus less on Ukraine: “We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons and denuclearization.”
Since his first presidential term, Trump has mused about scaling back the three countries’ defense spending. In a 2018 social media post, Trump said that he was “certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race.” He’s also made clear a goal to “de-nuke the world.”
A possible summit of the 3 biggest nuclear powers
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), of the estimated 12,187 nuclear warheads in the global inventory as of January 2026, about 9,745 were in military stockpiles for potential use. Of these, Russia has the world’s largest, with the U.S. a close second—together making up 83% of the global stockpile.
China is third with more than 600 nuclear warheads, representing only 6% of the global stockpile, though SIPRI notes Beijing is “expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country.”
The research institute says Russian and U.S. deployments of new nuclear warheads “are likely to rise in the years ahead,” with Moscow’s increase mainly due to military modernization allowing missiles to carry more warheads. Washington’s increase, on the other hand, “could happen as a result of more warheads being deployed to existing launchers, empty launchers being reactivated and new non-strategic nuclear weapons being added to the arsenal.”
Future nuclear proliferation in the U.S. and Russia is also uncertain after the bilateral Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) expired in February this year. That treaty placed verifiable limits on all Russian and U.S. deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons.
“The whole thing is a shame, because I’d love to denuclearize if possible,” Trump told Newsmax on Oct. 15.
In the interview, Trump said the U.S. was discussing denuclearization with Russia and China, but he added that Beijing “was probably less inclined.” During his first term, amid negotiations to extend the New START pact, Trump tried—and failed—to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks. The U.S. is trying to bring China into the fold again, but Beijing has rejected past U.S. efforts, arguing that the U.S. and Russia must first reduce their larger arsenals.
A possible summit on Ukraine, without Ukraine
Putin’s suggestion of a trilateral summit on Ukraine would leave out a key player in the ongoing war: Ukraine, which unsurprisingly rejected the idea.
“A trilateral meeting between the leaders of Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia could help end the war sooner,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha posted Monday on X. “A trilateral meeting between the leaders of Russia, China, and the U.S. would do only the opposite: encourage Putin to continue this war.”
Speaking to reporters Monday, Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said a final peace deal would obviously involve Ukraine: “Of course, a final settlement is impossible without the participation of someone in Kyiv who is prepared to take responsibility.”
But the proposal comes as Russia increasingly appears to be in Trump’s favor. Trump unveiled a diesel deal with Russia earlier this month in an attempt to lower fuel prices, and he also stopped implementing scheduled sanctions on Russia—moves that his allies have criticized. Meanwhile, Trump has pushed Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries, one of its advantages in the war. He’s also blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for rising diesel prices and has called on Ukrainians to replace him.