News Flash
WASHINGTON, Oct 30, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - US President Donald Trump said on
Thursday that he 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.
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.
Trump also 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."
"Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within five
years," he said.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its
latest annual report that Russia possesses 5,489 nuclear warheads, compared
to 5,177 for the United States and 600 for China.
In total, SIPRI estimates that the nine nuclear-armed countries - Russia, the
United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel,
and North Korea - possess more than 12,200 warheads.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it had been "many years" since
the United States had conducted nuclear tests.
"We don't do testing... we've halted it years, many years ago," he said,
adding that it was "appropriate" to start again because others are testing.
"I'd like to see denuclearization... denuclearization would be a tremendous
thing," he said.
He claimed "it's something we are actually talking to Russia about, and China
would be added to that if we do something."
Trump kept the location and dates for testing vague during the news
conference, but said earlier it would "begin immediately."
- 'Abide by obligations' -
The Republican president was in South Korea to meet with Xi, with the leaders
of the world's top two economies coming face-to-face for the first time in
Trump's second term.
China later urged the United States to "earnestly abide" by a global nuclear
testing ban.
"China hopes the United States will earnestly abide by the obligations of the
comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty and its commitment to a ban on nuclear
testing, and take concrete actions to safeguard the global nuclear
disarmament," foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.
The United States conducted 1,054 nuclear tests between July 16, 1945, when
the first test was conducted in New Mexico, and 1992, as well as two nuclear
attacks on Japan during World War II.
The last US nuclear test explosion was in September 1992, with a 20-kiloton
underground detonation at the Nevada Nuclear Security Site.
Then-president George H.W. Bush imposed a moratorium on further tests in
October 1992 that has been continued by successive administrations.
Nuclear testing was replaced by non-nuclear and subcritical experiments using
advanced computer simulations.
Putin announced on Wednesday the successful testing of a nuclear-capable,
nuclear-powered underwater drone, the second weapons test in days.
In televised remarks broadcast from a military hospital treating Russian
soldiers wounded in Ukraine, Putin said there was "no way to intercept" the
torpedo drone dubbed "Poseidon."
He said Poseidon can travel faster than conventional submarines, dive deeper
and reach any continent in the world.
Trump chided Putin after a cruise missile test on Sunday by saying that he
ought to end the war in Ukraine "instead of testing missiles."
A planned summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest last week was scrapped.
