Trump directs Pentagon to test nuclear weapons for first time since 1992

GYEONGJU, South Korea - President Donald Trump on Thursday morning said he directed the Pentagon to begin testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with Russia and China, an apparent attempt to flex the United States’ military might ahead of a high-stakes trade meeting here with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

Trump’s announcement on Truth Social signaled a reversal of decades of United States nuclear policy that could have far-reaching consequences for relations with U.S. adversaries, though his post included very few details about what the tests would entail. The last nuclear weapon test in the United States was held in 1992, before President George H.W. Bush implemented a moratorium on such exercises at the conclusion of the Cold War.

Trump wrote that the process would begin immediately and was in response to other countries’ testing programs.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed shock at Trump’s statements, noting the worldwide moratorium on nuclear testing. “President Trump mentioned that other countries are allegedly conducting nuclear weapons tests, but we were not aware that anyone was conducting tests until now,” he said.

The president posted about resuming nuclear weapons testing as his helicopter, Marine One, was in the air on his way to meet Xi at Gimhae Air Base.

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about what the United States’ nuclear weapons testing would involve, and Trump told reporters after his meeting with Xi that details would be forthcoming: “It’ll be announced.

We have test sites,” Trump said. “It’ll be announced.”

But Trump gave no indication that he had spoken with Xi about China’s growing nuclear program during a meeting he described as “amazing,” which he said resulted in a one-year trade agreement amid the months-long tariff war with China. When asked, Trump did not explain why he posted the announcement when he did.

Trump’s announcement came after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik, and large torpedo, the Poseidon, which are nuclear-capable weapons systems. So far, however, Putin has abstained from testing a nuclear weapon or carrying out a nuclear detonation.

“If he is referring to the Burevestnik tests, then these are not nuclear tests,” Peskov told reporters. “Absolutely not. All countries are developing their defense systems, but this is not a nuclear test.”

“I would like to remind you of President Putin’s statement, which has been repeated many times: If anyone deviates from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly,” he added.

While Trump said he would direct the “Department of War” to conduct the tests, the Department of Energy is the entity responsible for nuclear testing.

The first Trump administration discussed conducting a nuclear test explosion in 2020, and a senior administration official told The Washington Post at the time that demonstrating the United States could conduct a test would be a useful negotiating tool with Beijing and Moscow.

But such an escalation could undermine Trump’s recent moves to cement himself as the “peace president,” as he campaigns for the Nobel Peace Prize, and to soothe tensions with the United States’ main geopolitical rival.

Trump, nevertheless, suggested after his meeting with Xi that his ultimate goal was for nuclear powers to lay down their arms.

“I think de-escalation - they would call it denuclearization - would be a tremendous thing,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “We are actually talking to Russia about that, and China would be added to that if we do something.”

Trump’s nuclear testing announcement alarmed arms control experts, who said it was unnecessary and escalatory.

“The United States has no technical, military, or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

Kimball added that the National Nuclear Security Administration, the federal agency that oversees testing, was not equipped to immediately restart testing and that it “would need at least 36 months to resume contained nuclear tests underground at the former test site in Nevada.” The vast majority of the agency’s employees are furloughed due to the government shutdown, in contrast to past government funding lapses when these workers were deemed essential to government operations.

Trump zeroed on China’s growing nuclear capabilities as independent analysts say Beijing is among the “largest and most rapid modernization campaigns” of the nine countries known to have nuclear weapons.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said that Beijing is currently a distant third in its number of nuclear weapons to Russia and the United States, but that it “will be even within 5 years.”

The Department of Defense estimated last year that China will surpass 1,000 warheads by 2030 - a number still considerably behind both the U.S. and Russia, which have been estimated to have 3,700 and 4,300 respectively. Despite Pentagon data showing Russia has more, Trump on Thursday repeatedly claimed that the United States had the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

There have been more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions around the world since 1945, but most countries stopped nuclear testing in the 1990s. China’s last nuclear explosion occurred in 1996, and Moscow’s was in 1990, during the dying days of the Soviet Union. The rare exception was the most recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, a pariah state, in 2017.

Many nations - including the United States, Russia and China - are signatories to 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion.”

However, the treaty never went into effect because several key countries, including the United States, did not ratify it. There have also been allegations of significant breaches, with one senior U.S. official stating during the first Trump administration that Russia had “probably” conducted secret tests of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Trump’s announcement was likely in response to Russia’s recent testing of new nuclear delivery systems, including the Poseidon and a nuclear-powered cruise missile, and could prompt Beijing to accelerate nuclear research, said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on the U.S.-China nuclear relationship.

“If the United States indeed begins developing similar nuclear delivery technologies, there is a significant chance that Beijing would follow suit,” he said. “Continued Russian progress and parallel U.S. development could further incentivize China to accelerate its own research programs to avoid being left behind.”

It may also have influenced the tenor of the high-stakes meeting between Xi and Trump.

Chinese officials were likely “shocked” by Trump’s announcement, said Lyle Morris, an expert on China’s military at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“It came out of nowhere,” he added. “Xi and China doesn’t like surprises before a major summit meeting … it adds a distraction that the Chinese certainly didn’t see coming.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun responded to the announcement Thursday, saying that Beijing “hopes the United States will earnestly abide by its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty … and take concrete actions to uphold the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”

But according to Trump, the “very friendly meeting” went so well that Trump agreed to visit China in April - and Xi to visit the United States later next year. Trump said it remains undetermined, however, whether that will include a visit to Washington, or to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.