Trump Could Bring Putin, Xi To Table As Nuclear Arms Race Looms

President Donald Trump could meet with the leaders of America’s two largest nuclear adversaries next week as Washington pushes for a historic three-way agreement on nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised the possibility of a summit involving Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Wednesday phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to a State Department readout. The potential three-way meeting could take place on the sidelines of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit in Shenzhen, China, where Trump and Xi are already expected to meet, although Putin’s participation has not been confirmed.

“First, arms control can no longer be a bilateral issue between the United States and Russia,” Rubio wrote on the official U.S. State Department Substack on Feb. 6. “As the President has made clear, other countries have a responsibility to help ensure strategic stability, none more so than China. Second, we will not accept terms that harm the United States or ignore noncompliance in the pursuit of a future agreement. We have made our standards clear, and we will not compromise them to achieve arms control for arms control’s sake.”

Rubio and Wang discussed advancing peace and nuclear disarmament through direct conversations between world leaders, including a potential meeting with Russia, according to the State Department.

The two diplomats “agreed on the importance of meaningful leader-level conversations to advance goals such as peace and denuclearization, including at any potential trilateral leaders meeting with Russia,” the department said.

American, Chinese and Russian representatives have spent weeks negotiating the possible summit’s agenda, with discussions increasingly focused on restricting artificial intelligence in nuclear weapons systems, the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the negotiations.

One possible agreement could establish limits on the use of AI in nuclear command-and-control systems, which govern how nuclear weapons are authorized and deployed, the outlet reported.

The negotiations have reportedly shifted away from other major geopolitical disputes, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, as diplomats search for areas of potential agreement, according to the South China Morning Post.

However, Beijing has historically resisted American attempts to bring China into nuclear arms control negotiations alongside Russia, arguing that its arsenal remains considerably smaller than those of the two countries.