What to expect of a Trump-Xi-Putin nuke meeting — if it happens
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President Trump is hinting at an overseas "denuclearization" summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping — but don't expect major arms control breakthroughs at the sit-down, if it even happens, national security experts told Axios.
The big picture: Such a meeting would be unprecedented and requires significant amounts of behind-the-scenes hustle to secure consensus that could later be touted.
- It would also come as Washington overhauls its triad, as Moscow rattles its saber over Ukraine, as Beijing undertakes a historic buildout in pursuit of some sort of arsenal parity, and as all three jockey for geopolitical prominence.
What they're saying: "The nuclear danger is getting worse; all of the countries are either building up or modernizing their nuclear weapons," Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear policy fellow at Pax Sapiens, told Axios.
- "There's a great need for this, but the Trump administration's track record is quite poor," he said.
- "The prospects that they could get from what is a whim, 'Hey, let's meet and denuclearize,' to some sort of comprehensive or verifiable agreement? The odds on that are extremely low."
By the numbers: Nine countries, including France, India and the U.K., possess a total 12,100 nuclear warheads, according to the Arms Control Association.
- The vast majority of them, though, are held by the U.S. and Russia. China ranks a far but not inconsequential third.
Friction point: The summit Trump floated "could be the start of a longer conversation," and diplomatic effort is a "positive," Andrea Stricker, the nonproliferation program deputy director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Axios.
- But it'll be an uphill climb.
- "I'd be really surprised — and think it's unlikely that China would agree to nuclear arms control at this point in time," she said. "It's not even clear that Russia and the United States really seek a new agreement."
- The New START treaty, agreed to by the Cold War rivals, expired months ago. Such pacts are predicated on plenty of familiarization and negotiation.
Between the lines: What also cannot be ignored here are other geopolitical issues: grinding war in Eastern Europe and a potential bloodbath in the Taiwan Strait.
Zoom in: The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
- Trump is expected to travel to China next month to participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting.
The bottom line: "The only thing less likely than a trilateral summit on nuclear issues would be concrete outcomes that matter more than the optics," Chris Estep, an Indo-Pacific security expert with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told Axios.
- "Sometimes when something has never happened before, there's a pretty good reason why."
