A resounding message to China and Russia was sent by Donald Trump announcing that he had ordered the US military to begin testing nuclear weapons for the first time in 33 years.
OR Donald Trump’s statement on US nuclear weapons testing it came just minutes before the meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping began.
Trump made the announcement via Truth Social while aboard the presidential helicopter Marine One en route to the South Korean city of Busan where he met with Xi.
In his post, he said he had instructed the Pentagon to begin tests of the US nuclear arsenal “on equal footing” with other nuclear powers.
“Due to the testing programs of other countries, I have directed the War Department to begin testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. This process will start immediatelyTrump wrote.
At the same time, the American president explained that “the US has more nuclear weapons than any other country” and added that “Russia is in second place and China in third, but it may reach the same level (with Russia) within 5 years”.
The Republican did not elaborate further on the matter and did not respond to a reporter’s question about his post.
China doubled its nuclear arsenal
Beijing has more than doubled its nuclear arsenal, which is now estimated to include 600 nuclear warheads, up from 300 in 2020, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
According to this source, American officials estimate that China will have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.
According to the most recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), the US has 5,117 nuclear warheads and Russia 5,489.
Overall Sipri is valued at more than 12,200 the number of nuclear warheads possessed by nine countries: Russia, the US, China, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea.
Trump’s decision to begin testing nuclear weapons is linked to the rapid development of China’s nuclear arsenal in recent years, but also to Russia’s progress in developing new nuclear-powered missiles.
Putin on Sunday expressed satisfaction with the successful, final test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered missile, who, as he stated, “has unlimited range” and is capable of bypassing almost all systems.
The US president criticized Moscow’s move, telling reporters that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin should be working to end the war in Ukraine “instead of testing missiles”.
However, Putin did not appear to be deterred, saying on Wednesday that “yesterday we conducted yet another test, of another very promising system, of an underwater drone, the Poseidon”.
This drone, according to Moscow, is equipped with a nuclear propulsion system and it can also carry a nuclear payload.
“No other vessel in the world is equal to the one in speed and depth” it is operating, the Russian president claimed, while claiming there is “no way to intercept it”.
The disarmament agreements
Washington and Moscow remain bound by the New START disarmament treaty, which limits deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 which any country can have and provides for a verification mechanism, but which has been suspended for two years.
With the treaty due to expire in February, Putin proposed in early October to extend it for a year, but did not mention the possibility of resuming inspections of the arsenals.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, the US withdrew from another important treaty it had signed in 1987 with Russia, on intermediate-range nuclear weapons (INF).
In 2020 the US press reported on an alleged plan by Trump to resume nuclear testing as a warning to Russia and China.
From the first US nuclear test in July 1945 in the New Mexico desert to the moratorium imposed by President George W. Bush in 1992, the US has conducted 1,054 nuclear tests and bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.