Trump says nuclear weapons testing to resume in US after more than 30 years

US President Donald Trump called on US military commanders to resume nuclear weapons testing in order to keep up with other countries such as Russia and China.

“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal footing,” he wrote on social media ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

Trump said the United States possesses more nuclear weapons than any other country, followed by Russia in second place and China in “a distant third.” It has not conducted any nuclear tests since 1992.

This comes just days after Trump condemned Russia for testing a nuclear-powered missile. The Kremlin says its tests are “not nuclear.”

Later, on Air Force One after the two leaders’ meeting, Trump said nuclear test sites would be determined later.

“With others doing the testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do too,” Trump said on his way back to Washington.

No country except North Korea has conducted a test nuclear explosion this century, according to the Arms Control Association (ACA) — and even Pyongyang declared a moratorium in 2018.

Trump’s announcement did not clarify whether he was referring to a nuclear explosion test, or simply a weapons system capable of launching a nuclear weapon.

In a blog post on Wednesday evening, he acknowledged the “tremendous destructive power” of nuclear weapons, but said he had “no choice” but to modernize and renew the US arsenal during his first term in office.

He also said that China’s nuclear program “will exist even in 5 years.”

This announcement represents a clear shift from long-standing US policy. The last US nuclear weapons test was in 1992, before former Republican President George H.W. Bush issued a moratorium with the end of the Cold War.

Russia announced over the weekend that it had successfully tested two new weapons capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Among these missiles is a missile that the Kremlin said is capable of penetrating American defense systems, and an underwater drone called the Poseidon, capable of hitting the American West Coast and causing radiation waves in the ocean. But those tests did not include detonating nuclear weapons.

Russia denied on Thursday that it had conducted nuclear tests.

“Regarding the Poseidon and Borevestnik tests, we hope that the information will be correctly conveyed to President Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This can in no way be interpreted as a nuclear test.”

The Kremlin said that the United States had not informed Russia of its intention to conduct nuclear weapons tests.

“The United States is a sovereign country and has the right to make its own sovereign decisions,” the spokesman said. “But I want to recall President Putin’s statement, which has been repeated many times: If someone deviates from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly.”

China also responded to Trump’s announcement, saying it hopes the United States will seriously fulfill its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and respect its commitment to suspend nuclear testing.

Trump said that the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country.

The exact number of warheads each country possesses remains a secret in each case, but Russia is believed to have a total of about 5,459 warheads while the United States has about 5,177 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The US-based anti-corruption watchdog gives slightly higher estimates, saying the US nuclear stockpile is about 5,225 warheads, while Russia has about 5,580 warheads.

China is the third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, France has 290, the United Kingdom 225, India 180, Pakistan 170, Israel 90, and North Korea 50, FAS reports.

According to the US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China has nearly doubled its nuclear arsenal in the past five years, and the number of weapons is expected to exceed 1,000 by 2030.

Trump’s statement on the nuclear tests came about 100 days before the New Start Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) – the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia – expires in February 2026.

The agreement is limited to each country having 1,550 warheads on deployed missiles capable of crossing continents.

The United States last tested a nuclear bomb on September 23, 1992. The test was conducted at an underground facility in western Nevada.

The project, codenamed Divider, was the 1,054th nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States, according to Los Alamos National Laboratory, which played a central role in helping develop the world’s first atomic bomb.

The Nevada testing site, located 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Las Vegas, remains run by the US government.

“If necessary, the site could again be allowed to conduct nuclear weapons tests,” according to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Nuclear Science and History.

But some experts suggest it will take the United States at least 36 months to resume underground nuclear testing at the former Nevada test site.

“Trump is misguided and out of touch with reality. The United States has no technical, military, or political justification to resume nuclear explosion testing for the first time since 1992,” Darryl G. Kimball, executive director of the ACA, wrote on X.

Kimball added: “Trump will provoke strong public opposition in Nevada, from all US allies, and could trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by US adversaries, torpedoing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

Trump’s announcement also sparked negative reactions from a few opposition Democrats. “I will be introducing legislation to put an end to this,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., wrote on X.

The United States first entered the nuclear age with Trinity testing the first atomic bomb in July 1945 in the Alamogordo Desert, New Mexico.

It later became the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in wars after dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of the same year during World War II.

almost 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki With many deaths occurring as a result of direct blast effects, burns and later due to radiation sickness.