US President Donald Trump has expressed willingness to hold a three-way summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss nuclear arms reductions, potentially during his planned visit to China next month. The White House signalled on Monday, 20 October that Washington is seeking to revive arms-control diplomacy among the world's three major nuclear powers.

What Trump Said

Speaking to reporters before departing the White House, Trump indicated he was open to a proposed trilateral meeting, but with a clear condition: nuclear weapons and denuclearisation — not Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine — must be at the centre of any discussions.

'I would do it, not so much for Ukraine, we would have it to talk about denuclearization,' Trump said.

His remarks came days after he stated in an 15 October interview that Washington was already in conversations with both Moscow and Beijing on the subject of denuclearisation.

The APEC Backdrop

The remarks follow reports that President Putin had proposed a leaders' meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen in November. No formal agreement for such a summit has been announced, and the three governments have not confirmed a common agenda or timetable for nuclear negotiations.

Notably, Russia has suggested that any Trump-Xi encounter could also address the Ukraine conflict — a framing Trump appeared to resist, preferring to keep the focus on nuclear arsenals.

The Nuclear Arithmetic Problem

The United States and Russia together possess the world's largest nuclear stockpiles. China, while substantially smaller in declared warheads, has been expanding its nuclear capabilities. Trump acknowledged that Beijing remains behind the other two powers but is actively building its arsenal.

This asymmetry is the central obstacle to any trilateral framework. China has long opposed proposals for three-way disarmament talks, arguing that its arsenal is too small relative to those of Washington and Moscow to make equivalent limits either fair or realistic. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated that position last week, stating that expecting Beijing to participate in three-way nuclear disarmament talks 'at the present stage' was 'neither fair nor realistic.'

Trump acknowledged that reaching an agreement would be difficult precisely because of this imbalance, but framed the effort as necessary given the scale of the security challenge.

The New START Vacuum

The push for fresh talks comes against a backdrop of significant arms-control erosion. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which had limited each country to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and imposed restrictions on delivery systems, expired earlier this year. Washington and Moscow are now without legally binding strategic nuclear limits for the first time in decades.

Arms-control specialists have warned that the absence of a successor agreement could accelerate competition among nuclear powers and erode transparency over strategic arsenals. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said on Monday that meaningful negotiations would require detailed proposals and sustained diplomatic engagement — conditions not yet in place.

Ukraine's Concerns and What Comes Next

Ukrainian officials have expressed concern about any high-level discussions that could affect their country's future without Kyiv's participation. Russia's framing of a potential summit as covering the Ukraine conflict directly contradicts Trump's stated preference for a purely nuclear-focused agenda, leaving the scope of any talks unresolved.

With the APEC summit in Shenzhen approaching in November, the coming weeks will test whether Trump's public overture translates into structured diplomatic engagement or remains an exploratory signal.