WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump said Thursday he had ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testing on a level with 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 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 Truth Social post that specifically referenced Russia and China.
Trump also noted 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.”
Trump did not provide further details on the testing except that the “process will begin immediately.”
Trump is in South Korea to meet with Xi, as the leaders of the world’s top two economies come face-to-face for the first time in the Republican president’s second term.
News agency Reuters reported that
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo that military analysts say is capable of devastating coastal regions by triggering vast radioactive ocean swells.
As Trump has toughened both his rhetoric and his stance on Russia, Putin has publicly flexed his nuclear muscles with the test of a new Burevestnik cruise missile on October 21 and nuclear launch drills on October 22.
The United States last tested a nuclear weapon in 1992.
Tests provide evidence of what any new nuclear weapon will do — and whether older weapons still work.
Apart from providing technical data, such a test would be seen in Russia and China as a deliberate assertion of US strategic power.
The United States opened the nuclear era in July 1945 with the test of a 20-kiloton atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and then dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to end World War Two.
