US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he had instructed the Pentagon to commence nuclear weapons testing comparable to that of China and Russia—just moments before holding a crucial summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
This decision follows a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, in which he revealed that Moscow had successfully carried out a test of a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone, despite warnings from Washington.
“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote in a social media post that specifically mentioned Russia and China.
Trump also stated that the United States possesses more nuclear weapons than any other nation, commending his own administration for conducting “a complete update and renovation of existing weapons.”
He added that “Russia is second, and China is a distant third but will be even within five years.”
According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), nine nations currently have nuclear weapons: Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
Out of the estimated 12,331 nuclear warheads recorded by ICAN, more than 5,500 are owned by Russia, while the United States holds 5,044.
Trump did not provide any specifics about the type of testing that would be conducted but stated that the process would “begin immediately.”
Putin had announced on Wednesday the successful trial of a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone—the second weapons test conducted within days.
In a televised address broadcast from a military hospital treating Russian soldiers injured in Ukraine, Putin said there was “no way to intercept” the unmanned drone torpedo known as “Poseidon.”
He explained that Poseidon could travel faster than traditional submarines, dive to great depths, and reach any continent around the globe.
Following an earlier test of a cruise missile on Sunday, Trump criticised Putin, saying he should end the conflict in Ukraine “instead of testing missiles.”
A planned summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest was cancelled last week.
Between 1945—when the first atomic bomb test took place in New Mexico on 16 July—and 1992, the United States carried out 1,054 nuclear tests and conducted two nuclear attacks on Japan during the Second World War.
The most recent US nuclear test occurred in September 1992, involving a 20-kiloton underground explosion at the Nevada Nuclear Security Site.
In October 1992, then-President George H.W. Bush enforced a moratorium on further nuclear testing, which was upheld by subsequent administrations. Since then, nuclear testing has been replaced with non-nuclear and subcritical experiments using advanced computer simulations.
Trump is currently in South Korea to meet Xi, as the leaders of the world’s two largest economies come face-to-face for the first time in the Republican president’s second term.
