Trump proposes three‑way nuclear pact with Xi

Nuclear arms control is back on the agenda — but in the messiest possible form. Donald Trump is going to Beijing this week for talks with Xi Jinping, and one item he plans to raise is a three-way pact among the U.S., China, and Russia to limit nuclear arsenals. That is a real shift, because the old U.S.-Russia framework just expired and there is now no binding cap on the two biggest nuclear stockpiles. The pitch sounds simple. The reality is not. ### What is Trump actually proposing? The core idea is a trilateral agreement setting limits on how many nuclear weapons the United States, China, and Russia keep in their arsenals. Trump is expected to bring it up directly with Xi during the May 14–15 summit in Beijing. The third country here is Russia — not a mystery partner — and the proposal is being floated alongside talks on trade, Taiwan, AI, and Iran. (newscentermaine.com) ### Why now? Because the old architecture just fell away. New START — the last major treaty capping deployed U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces — expired on February 5, 2026. That matters because it was the final legally binding brake on the two largest arsenals. Once that expired, the conversation stopped being “should there be a next deal?” and became “what, exactly, replaces nothing?” ### Why bring China into it? (al-monitor.com) Because China is no longer the small side player it once was. Its arsenal is still much smaller than those of the U.S. and Russia, but it is growing fast. SIPRI and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists both put China at roughly 600 warheads in 2025, making it the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal among the major powers. If Washington thinks the future is a three-player nuclear competition, then a U.S.-Russia-only treaty starts to look incomplete. (state.gov) ### So why is this so hard? Because the numbers are lopsided. The U.S. and Russia still sit in a different league from China, so Beijing has long argued that it should not be bound by the same kind of caps until the two larger powers come down much further. That is the basic problem — asking the smallest of the three to join a ceiling designed for the biggest two. It is a bit like inviting someone with a mid-sized savings account into a spending freeze negotiated by two billionaires. (sipri.org) ### What has China said before? China has generally resisted trilateral arms-control talks of the kind Washington pushed in Trump’s first term. The U.S. tried in 2020 to get Beijing into a three-way process with Russia, and that effort went nowhere. China’s position has been pretty consistent: the U.S. and Russia, because they hold much larger arsenals, should take the first cuts. (armscontrol.org) ### And what about Russia? Russia has its own condition. Moscow has previously signaled that if nuclear limits become truly multilateral, then Britain and France should also be counted. That complicates Trump’s framing, because his version is a neat three-country deal, while Russia’s preferred version quickly expands into a broader NATO-related argument. So even if Xi were interested, the shape of the table is still disputed. (armscontrol.org) ### Is this about cutting weapons or just managing risk? Probably risk first. A full treaty with detailed limits, definitions, inspections, and verification rules would be hard enough between two countries. Doing that among three rivals with different arsenal sizes and different doctrines is much harder. A more realistic first step would be guardrails — transparency, crisis hotlines, launch-risk reduction, or informal restraint — rather than an immediate grand bargain. (armscontrol.org) That is an inference, but it fits where arms-control debate has moved since New START expired. ### Why does this matter beyond the summit? Because once treaties disappear, arms racing gets easier and mistrust gets cheaper. Trump’s proposal matters less as a near-term diplomatic breakthrough than as a signal that Washington knows the old two-power model is breaking down. But the catch is brutal — the three countries do not agree on the problem, the numbers, or even who belongs in the room. (iiss.org) ### Bottom line? Trump is trying to open a conversation that probably needed to happen. But opening it and landing it are very different things. The summit may put trilateral nuclear arms control back into headlines. It is unlikely to put a real pact within easy reach. (newscentermaine.com) (sipri.org)