War Room brief: Trump, Xi and Putin set a joint meeting as Zelensky says the US floated Donbas for NATO

Trump, Xi and Putin

The White House says Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping plan to meet together on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen, the BBC reported. Spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Trump will discuss reducing nuclear weapons, and the BBC says Iran may come up but Ukraine is not expected to. Moscow and Beijing have not commented. An unnamed senior US official told AP and Reuters, as relayed by the BBC, that no agreement is expected. Trump is due in Shenzhen late Wednesday, meets Xi one-on-one on Thursday, and ends the visit with the three-way meeting. The last US-Russia arms treaty expired in February. Our earlier story has the arms-control background: the Shenzhen trilateral.

On trade, China's Commerce Ministry said officials held "candid, in-depth and constructive" talks on Friday at the first China-US trade council meeting, covering tariffs, a reciprocal "$30 billion-for-$30 billion" tariff-cut arrangement and farm trade, CNBC reported. The ministry did not say whether anything was agreed. CNBC adds that the roughly $60 billion package proposed after the September summit is not yet finalised. Watch today: any Chinese or Russian confirmation of the three-way meeting.

Russia and Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that US negotiators asked whether Ukraine would withdraw from the Donbas if it were offered NATO membership, and that it was the first time the idea had been raised, according to the BBC. He said that if a proposal included security guarantees, no limits on Ukraine's military and reconstruction funds, he would put it to a referendum, and that "Nato is back on the agenda." The BBC notes US officials had earlier said Ukrainian membership was off the table, and that Russia has called another NATO member on its border unacceptable. The BBC reports that comments from Putin and Kremlin officials suggest Moscow's position has not shifted. This is Zelensky's account of a US idea; we have not seen a US statement on it. Watch today: a US or Kremlin response, and a date for the next round of talks with European delegates.

Iran, Hormuz and the nuclear file

A tanker carrying liquefied gas hit a mine and suffered an explosion on Friday in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iran's Revolutionary Guard navy, which said the ship was on an "unauthorised and dangerous route," as relayed by OilPrice.com, citing Reuters. This is Iran's account and we have no independent confirmation. OilPrice says Iran has reported incidents nearly every day for the past month and that Iran's military said four oil tankers were hit by explosions on Thursday. Separately, Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told Al Jazeera that Hormuz navigation would never return to pre-war conditions.

The UN nuclear watchdog's director general, Rafael Grossi, wrote in a restricted report seen by Bloomberg that the agency has lost continuity of knowledge on Iran's enriched uranium stockpile for more than a year and "is not able to conclude" there has been no diversion of declared material, OilPrice.com reported. Iran has ruled out a return to regular monitoring. The IAEA Board of Governors meets in Vienna next week. OilPrice's read is that the US and Iran are nowhere near a deal. Trump said Thursday the US does not need one; our coverage is here. Headlines in the scoop feed also say Yemen's Houthis claim missile fire at Saudi forces in Jazan; we read only the headline and treat it as unconfirmed. Watch today: any US or shipping-industry confirmation of Hormuz incidents.

Markets box

US markets are closed for the weekend; these are Friday, Nov. 13 closes from Yahoo Finance (front-month futures series, so we name no contract month). Percentages are our arithmetic against Thursday.

Oil. Brent finished the week close to where Thursday's Trump post left it, with no weekend trading to reprice the Hormuz incidents or the nuclear report. Monday's open is the first test. Shipping and insurance. Near-daily reported mine and explosion incidents keep war-risk cover in focus. Airlines and airspace. JETS has now slipped two sessions in a row as crude rose. Defense. ITA edged lower. Consumers. Pump prices follow crude with a lag, so a firmer Brent can slow the recent drop at the pump.

More: Friday's brief, crude oil chart, gold chart, War Room, markets.

Sources: BBC (Shenzhen meeting), BBC (Zelensky on Donbas and NATO), CNBC (China-US trade council), OilPrice.com (Hormuz), OilPrice.com (IAEA), Yahoo Finance, Reuters headline (not read in full). Claims are attributed to the parties that made them. This is market information, not investment advice.