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Should the world fear Trump-Putin-Xi collusion? | The Economist
3/10TL;DR
A possible meeting among Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin would signal great-power bargaining and exclusion of others more than any durable new détente.
KEY POINTS
A summit would be symbolically powerful
A three-way meeting has been floated around the margins of APEC in China, though Beijing has not confirmed it. Marco Rubio framed contact among the leaders of the three biggest nuclear powers as normal, but the real significance would lie in the image of a small club shaping outcomes without other affected states at the table.
Nuclear arms would offer a convenient agenda
All three capitals have reasons to talk about nuclear issues, at least rhetorically. For Russia, strategic weapons remain one area of clear parity with the United States; for Trump, arms control offers the language of statesmanship and crisis prevention; for China, participation would elevate its standing, even though it has long resisted formal limits while its arsenal remains smaller.
The deepest anxiety is exclusion
The main concern is not communication itself but the possibility of alignment among major powers while sidelining Europe, Ukraine and other stakeholders. That has revived comparisons with Yalta, less because the world can be neatly divided again than because smaller countries fear decisions about their security being taken over their heads.
Putin’s goal remains larger than Ukraine alone
For Putin, the war is tied to a wider attempt to remake Europe’s security order and weaken the post-Cold War settlement. Ukraine is the battlefield, but the strategic target is broader: reducing Western cohesion, marginalizing Europe and proving that force can revise borders and influence.
Trump’s outreach to Moscow has raised alarm
Recent U.S. moves, including warmer rhetoric toward Russia, sanctions relief on energy and repeated envoy visits to Moscow, have fueled concern that Trump is front-loading concessions. One theory in Washington is that peace in Ukraine could loosen Russia’s dependence on China; another is that Putin could help on Iran. Critics argue that both assumptions overstate what the Kremlin can deliver.
Russia sees opportunity, but not necessarily trust
In Russia, enthusiasm for Trump appears to have faded. He is no longer viewed as a transformational figure so much as an unreliable businessman, while Europe has replaced the United States as the chief public enemy in official narratives. Even so, every U.S. hint of wavering strengthens Kremlin confidence that time may favor Moscow.
Europe is not as weak as the Kremlin hopes
European governments have pledged around €90 billion for Ukraine and have expanded military support while debating further steps. That does not eliminate vulnerability to political fatigue or economic pressure, but it reduces the chances that Washington and Moscow alone can impose a settlement over European objections.
China still sees the U.S. as its main rival
Beneath tactical calm, Beijing appears to view competition with the United States as structural and long term. That limits hopes for a sweeping reset with Trump. The immediate risk is for Taiwan, where delays to a roughly $14 billion U.S. arms package would leave the island more exposed while Trump treats security commitments as bargaining chips.
China’s support for Russia is substantial but calculated
China has become essential to the Russian economy through trade, components and access to sanctioned goods, while also gaining lessons from the battlefield on drones, data and modern warfare. Yet the partnership is not sentimental. Russian elites and the public alike show unease about dependence on a far stronger neighbor, and Beijing knows Moscow would prefer to tilt back toward the West if circumstances allowed.
A 19th-century spheres-of-influence model fits badly
Geography still matters, but the world is too interconnected and technologically fluid to be cleanly partitioned. Power now depends not only on territory and armies but on supply chains, data, semiconductors, energy routes and AI. Even if leaders try to revive old-style great-power deals, holding such spheres together would be costly, unstable and contested.
CONCLUSION
A Trump-Xi-Putin meeting, if it happens, would be less a settled new order than a test of whether major powers can still intimidate others through theater and selective deals. The larger reality is a fractured system in which old imperial habits persist, but no leader can fully restore the world they imagine.
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