Trump’s Asia Agenda Includes Putin But Not Kim, With Nvidia Scandal Off the Table

Vladimir Putin is in, Kim Jong Un is out, and any talk of the Nvidia scandal involving Jensen Huang is off the table, according to a White House briefing on plans for President Trump’s trip to Asia next week. And Elon Musk is along for the ride.The late Friday briefing, delivered to selected reporters by “senior officials” who must remain unidentified under the ground rules, broke little new ground but settled a number of issues that had been subject to widespread speculation ahead of the president’s travels to the Philippines and communist China beginning Tuesday. Those questions included whether Mr. Trump would engage in a trilateral meeting with the presidents of China and Russia (the answer is yes); whether he might meet for the first time since 2019 with North Korea’s dictator (the answer is no); and whether he will raise the simmering China spy scandal with President Xi Jinping (not unless Mr. Xi brings it up).The trilateral with Presidents Xi and Putin, the first ever among the leaders of the three countries, will take place on Thursday in Shenzhen, in southern China, on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which brings together leaders from 21 countries and regions spanning Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim.In confirming the widely anticipated meeting, the unnamed officials said Mr. Trump’s goal will be to make progress in containing the spread of nuclear weapons, not to pursue a Ukraine peace deal behind the back of President Volodymyr Zelensky.“The President has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world, whose proliferation President Trump believes is very dangerous,” said the White House assistant press secretary Olivia Wales, who was joined by the anonymous briefers.“We do not expect to get to any kind of agreement,” an unnamed official added. “This is a difficult topic for China to address, but we do think it’s time for China to sort of step up, you know, to the adults’ table, if you will, and have adult conversations about adult things.”Ukrainian officials have expressed deep concern about the inclusion of Mr. Putin in a U.S. meeting with Mr. Xi, who has provided critical logistical support to Russia’s war on their country.“A trilateral meeting between the leaders of Ukraine, the US and Russia could help end the war sooner. A trilateral meeting between the leaders of Russia, China and the US would do only the opposite: encourage Putin to continue this war,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, was quoted as saying last month by Ukrainska Pravda.However, the briefers said Friday that Washington has a “whole other track” of negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow and that “China is not really a part of that track, so it doesn’t seem appropriate to have the Ukraine discussion there,” according to wire service accounts.The Iran war, on the other hand, will be raised, the briefers said, though few details were offered on what Mr. Trump might ask of his counterparts. Both Russia and China have provided Tehran with critical intelligence and logistical support during the war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28.Separate from the high-profile trilateral, Mr. Trump will meet one-on-one on Thursday with Mr. Xi, with those talks expected to focus on economic cooperation and trade barriers and next steps toward implementing an emergency “hot line” to share information in the event of a major calamity involving rogue artificial intelligence.The briefers said Mr. Trump will not bring up allegations that a suspected Chinese intelligence asset was romantically involved with the recently ousted Nvidia chief, Jensen Huang. They said the scandal should not have any bearing on the trip because the United States does not make its use of export controls subject to negotiations with foreign countries.Mr. Huang was dropped from a preliminary list of American business leaders who were to travel with the president. In his absence, the most prominent tech titan on the trip will be Mr. Musk, the Space X and Tesla chief, whose participation was confirmed Friday. Briefers stressed that he will not participate in the trilateral with Messrs. Putin and Xi.Also off the agenda, according to the briefers, is any one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong Un, who met with Mr. Trump three times during his first term but who is now thought unlikely to turn up at Shenzhen for the APEC summit. “As of right now, there are no plans at all for engagement with North Korea,” one of the briefers was quoted as saying.

Trump’s Asia Agenda Includes Putin But Not Kim, With Nvidia Scandal Off the Table

Trump’s Asia Agenda Includes Putin But Not Kim, With Nvidia Scandal Off the Table

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