by Tsiporah Fried
An unprecedented summit with Putin and Xi could demonstrate Washington’s unmatched diplomatic reach. But it may also reveal the growing gap between America’s power and its credibility.
President Donald Trump’s openness to an unprecedented trilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, potentially on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen this November, raises questions far beyond the war in Ukraine.
The proposal reportedly originated in Moscow, with Putin seeking to capitalize on his improving relationship with Trump. The American president, however, has suggested that such a gathering should focus primarily on nuclear disarmament rather than Ukraine.
Yet the significance of such a summit would extend well beyond its immediate agenda. It would reflect a broader transformation in international relations: the growing temptation to replace established institutions, alliances and multilateral frameworks with direct transactions among great powers.
The deeper question is what this approach reveals about American power itself. Is Washington demonstrating its unique ability to shape the international order, or is it gradually undermining the credibility that has made its power so effective
The proposed summit must be viewed against Washington’s recent shift toward Moscow. Earlier this month, President Trump agreed to import Russian diesel and, on October 16, waived enforcement of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, suspending key new sanctions and tariffs on Russia. Although legally permitted, these decisions, which attracted criticism from within the Republican Party, weaken economic pressure on Russia without securing corresponding concessions.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have raised concerns that restrictions are affecting satellite communications and interrupting intelligence support. Washington disputes some of these allegations, but the uncertainty underscores Ukraine’s dependence on American capabilities as Russia continues striking civilian targets. Against this backdrop, a spectacular trilateral summit may also redirect attention from the increasingly controversial US rapprochement with Russia.
For Donald Trump, the summit would reflect his preference for direct great-power deals over multilateral institutions, which he regards as ineffective and his transactional approach to diplomacy that prioritizes personal engagement and visible agreements with foreign leaders over established frameworks and traditional alliances. It may also reflect strategic calculation. As Walter Russell Mead has argued, Washington may see common interests with Moscow in limiting Russia’s dependence on Beijing, managing energy markets and countering Islamist militancy.
This logic, combined with Trump’s relative indifference to Europe’s strategic concerns, raises the possibility that European security could become a bargaining variable in a broader geopolitical accommodation. But the summit’s immediate benefits would be primarily political and symbolic. Bringing together the Russian and Chinese leaders would reinforce his image as a dealmaker capable of negotiating directly with America’s principal competitors.
For Vladimir Putin, the gains could be more substantial. Washington’s recent decisions have eased pressure on Moscow, while tensions between Washington and Kyiv have intensified. A summit alongside the American and Chinese presidents would further normalize Russia’s international standing after its isolation following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It would also advance Putin’s ambition to replace a Western-led order with one organized around competing great powers and spheres of influence. If negotiations over Ukraine proceeded without Kyiv’s direct participation, Moscow would gain further ground by turning its aggression into a bargaining issue between Washington and Moscow.
If the summit opened the door to negotiations over Ukraine without Kyiv’s direct participation, Moscow would have achieved something even more consequential: transforming its military aggression into a bargaining issue between Washington and Moscow.
Xi Jinping’s calculations are different. Hosting such a gathering would reinforce China’s position as an indispensable actor in global security governance. Yet Beijing has reasons for caution: Xi may be reluctant to endorse a settlement that legitimizes Ukraine’s dismemberment and further damages relations with the European Union. He would also be unlikely to welcome an American-Russian rapprochement negotiated at China’s expense.
All three leaders thus stand to gain, but the summit’s broader significance lies in its symbolism: the emergence of an informal great-power concert operating outside the institutions and alliances that have structured international security for decades. For Europe, this could be destabilizing and signal that Russia can pursue its military objectives while recovering international legitimacy.
President Trump’s suggestion that the summit focus on nuclear disarmament rather than Ukraine may divert attention from what Washington is prepared to concede to Moscow. Yet nuclear arms control should not be dismissed as diplomatic theater: the world has entered a new era of nuclear competition.
During his first administration, Trump questioned arms control arrangements that excluded China. Beijing’s absence from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was among Washington’s reasons for withdrawing in 2019, though Russian violations remained the main justification. His administration also unsuccessfully sought to bring China into broader strategic arms-control negotiations.
The challenge has since grown. The New START treaty expired in February 2026, ending the last binding bilateral treaty that limited US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. Together, Washington and Moscow possess approximately 86 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, while China’s expanding arsenal is transforming a largely bilateral balance into a three-power competition.
Yet trilateral arms control faces formidable obstacles. Beijing has little incentive to accept numerical limits while its arsenal remains far smaller than those of the United States and Russia. Washington, meanwhile, must consider the prospect of confronting two major nuclear competitors simultaneously.
The European and Indo-Pacific theaters are also increasingly interconnected: concessions to Moscow could affect American deterrence calculations toward Beijing. Meanwhile, Russia continues to use nuclear threats for strategic leverage, China is modernizing and expanding its arsenal and the United States is modernizing its nuclear triad.
These dynamics do not make arms control impossible, but a credible agreement would require sustained negotiations, verification mechanisms, reciprocal commitments and strategic predictability. An improvised summit among three leaders known for personalized diplomacy might produce a declaration of intent, but not the institutional foundations of a durable agreement.
Nuclear arms control remains a serious strategic objective. The question is whether a spectacular summit can initiate meaningful negotiations or merely provide diplomatic cover for political accommodation without resolving the underlying strategic challenges.
A renewed nuclear arms-control process could, in principle, benefit European security. From SALT to START, US-Soviet and US-Russian agreements helped constrain strategic competition and reduce nuclear risks.
The danger would arise if the United States, Russia and China began to treat themselves as the exclusive arbiters of the global nuclear balance.
For decades, American extended deterrence in Europe has rested on more than nuclear guarantees: conventional military presence, shared planning, intelligence, logistics and operational integration have given substance to Washington’s commitments. A nuclear agreement negotiated without meaningful consultation with European allies could therefore undermine confidence in American security guarantees without formally changing NATO’s nuclear posture.
The consequences would extend to Washington’s bilateral relations with Paris and London. France’s independent nuclear deterrent and the United Kingdom’s sovereign but closely integrated nuclear relationship with the United States would face different challenges. Still, both could be tested if European nuclear interests became bargaining variables in a broader accommodation with Moscow and Beijing. Neither relationship would automatically break down, but the political damage could accelerate European efforts to develop a more autonomous deterrence architecture.
The paradox is that an initiative intended to reduce nuclear risks could deepen transatlantic divisions and accelerate Europe’s pursuit of greater strategic responsibility. The test of any agreement, therefore, is not only whether it reduces arsenals, but whether it strengthens strategic stability without weakening the alliances on which European security depends.
The symbolic comparison to the Yalta Conference is hard to avoid. In February 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin discussed the war’s final stages and the postwar order. Yalta subsequently became a symbol of great powers determining smaller nations’ futures without their full participation. A Shenzhen summit seeking to settle Ukraine’s future or security arrangements affecting Europe or Taiwan without the countries concerned would attract similar criticism.
Yet the analogy has limits. In 1945, Soviet forces occupied much of Eastern Europe and Western leaders had limited means to reverse the military realities on the ground. Yalta did not single-handedly divide Europe; it reflected strategic conditions that shaped the continent for decades. Today, Ukraine continues to resist, European states are rebuilding their defense capabilities and global economic interdependence complicates the establishment of exclusive spheres of influence.
What is emerging, therefore, is less a new Yalta than transactional multipolarity: great powers pursuing bilateral and trilateral bargains while remaining constrained by military, political and economic realities they cannot fully control.
A further difference is the asymmetry between Moscow and Beijing. Unlike the Soviet Union in 1945, whose military contribution to defeating Nazi Germany secured enormous influence over the postwar settlement, today’s Russia is increasingly economically, industrially and technologically dependent on China. Its nuclear arsenal and military capabilities preserve significant strategic autonomy but cannot match Beijing’s comprehensive global power. The apparent equality of a three-leader summit would conceal this imbalance.
It is also unclear what concrete agreement such a gathering could produce. It might prove less an exercise in reorganizing the world than a carefully staged demonstration of great-power diplomacy. The danger is not necessarily repeating Yalta, but normalizing the principle that great powers can negotiate others’ security and sovereignty without their consent.
The prospect of a Trump-Xi-Putin summit reveals a fundamental paradox of American power. The United States retains unmatched military, technological, financial and diplomatic capabilities, backed by a global network of alliances. Putin’s push for direct negotiations with Trump and China’s importance to any agreement underscore Washington’s central role. Yet material superiority alone does not guarantee leadership; it also depends on credible commitments, predictable decisions and partners’ trust.
Trump’s longstanding skepticism toward multilateral institutions—and the perceived inability of these institutions to resolve major conflicts—reinforces his preference for direct deals among great powers and shapes his diplomacy. Personal encounters, dramatic announcements and spectacular agreements offer visible demonstrations of strength. However, this preference can conceal strategic costs: an agreement may reward coercion, a commercial deal may weaken pressure on an adversary, or it may reveal Washington’s willingness to bargain over its allies’ interests.
For allies, the question is no longer simply whether America can defend them, but whether its commitments will endure when political circumstances change or transactional bargains become attractive. These doubts extend beyond Europe. Asian allies are watching how Washington handles Ukraine as they assess their own security guarantees, while Middle Eastern partners question the durability of American commitments. Such perceptions also shape adversaries’ calculations. Deterrence depends not only on military capability but on political will; even overwhelming superiority may fail to deter if commitments appear negotiable.
By prioritizing bilateral transactions with adversaries, Washington risks undermining one of its greatest strategic advantages: its network of alliances, which provides global reach, operational depth and legitimacy. Neither Russia nor China possesses an equivalent system. These partnerships are not constraints on American power but among its principal sources.
The central question raised by a possible Shenzhen summit is whether Trump is pursuing more than a dramatic diplomatic performance: a geopolitical realignment based on selective bargains among great powers, potentially at the expense of European security interests. America’s problem is not a lack of power, but the risk of mistaking the performance of power for its effective exercise. By pursuing short-term diplomatic breakthroughs without accounting for the trust on which its alliances depend, Washington could remain materially unrivaled while weakening one of its greatest strategic advantages: the confidence of its partners.
That would transform the international order far more profoundly than any declaration emerging from Shenzhen.
Mr.BadGuy
Publisher
Mr.BadGuy
Publisher
These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.