US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testing to equal China and Russia, just minutes before opening a high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The move comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone, in defiance of Washington’s warnings.
“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. Trump claimed that the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country, praising his own efforts to do “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.
The United States has been a signatory since 1996 to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all atomic test blasts, whether for military or civilian purposes. It was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to testing nuclear warheads, which the United States last did in 1992, or testing weapons systems capable of carrying atomic warheads.
China later urged the United States to “earnestly abide” by a global nuclear testing ban. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it had been “many years” since the United States had conducted nuclear tests. Then-president George H.W. Bush imposed a moratorium on further tests in October 1992 that has been continued by successive administrations.
