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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping might meet in China for trilateral talks next week to discuss the ending of the Iran war.
Trump told reporters he expected to meet Russian and Chinese leaders at an Asia-Pacific summit in Shenzhen, China, scheduled for November 18-19.
“Well, I’m going to be going to China,” Trump said on Sunday, “and one of the meetings I think will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that’ll be interesting.”
He added: “We’ll talk a lot of things, including denuclearisation, but we’ll be talking about a lot of things. We’re trying to end the war in Iran.”
If it happens, it would be historic, although the three leaders are unlikely to discuss anything substantive because their interests are at odds. This one-of-a-kind trilateral meeting has been acknowledged by the Kremlin on 21 October, saying it was “being prepared.”
This followed a Wall Street Journal report that Putin wanted the three-way talks to broker a peace deal in Ukraine that would be favourable to Moscow, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“I think it will happen. The question is the format and the content,” said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center. “China wants the image but not the costs.”
‘A diplomatic coup’ for Putin
In the US, Trump is often criticised for having a penchant for authoritarian leaders like those of China and Russia, among others.
“Putin has the most to gain from a leaders’ trilateral, and the Russians are clearly behind the push for a meeting, which would be a diplomatic coup,” said Danny Russel, a former senior State Department official who served in former President Barack Obama’s administration.
Trump, with his “crush on authoritarian strongmen,” would love the meeting, though he clearly has been warned by his advisers to steer clear of Ukraine as a topic of the discussions, said Russel.
Trump is expected to travel to Shenzhen to meet Xi for the third time this year, amid a fragile trade truce set to expire in January. Beijing is hosting this year’s leaders’ summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a 21-member grouping that includes the US and Russia.
His willingness to meet with Putin also shows the desire to end Russia’s isolation that was triggered by its invasion.
The meeting may amount to no more than a photo opportunity that would allow Putin to be seen next to US and Chinese leaders, said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.
“But these photo opportunities have diminishing diplomatic returns,” Singleton said. “The spectacle may be historic without producing anything particularly consequential.”