When Chinese leader Xi Jinping inserted a reference to “twists and turns” in his relationship with President Donald Trump in the opening remarks of their summit this week, he could hardly have imagined the twist that came minutes before the talks began.

Writing from Marine One, which was gliding toward the airport in South Korea where he was due to meet Xi, Trump instructed the Pentagon to resume nuclear testing after a 33-year pause, citing other nations’ — including China’s — own capabilities.

“That process will begin immediately,” the president wrote on social media.

The directive took even many of Trump’s advisers off guard, according to officials, leading to unanswered questions about when, or if, the testing would actually begin. Historically, it is the Department of Energy that maintains and tests the US nuclear stockpile, not the Department of Defense. And engineers have said accurate tests can be conducted through computer simulation, not blowing up an actual warhead underwater or in the Nevada desert.

Hours after the president’s post, it did not appear as if the Pentagon was moving swiftly to test a nuclear weapon. Testifying on Capitol Hill, the senior military officer nominated to oversee the American nuclear arsenal said Thursday morning he was not “reading anything” into Trump’s Truth Social post — an indication, if one was needed, that the instructions hadn’t been previewed very widely ahead of time.

The surprise message only underscored the volatile approach Trump is taking to foreign affairs nine months into his second administration. Even as he was about to sit down for a meeting intended to lend stability to the world’s most important bilateral relationship, Trump demonstrated his willingness to suddenly veer in an unexpected direction.

Administration officials offered little clarity when questioned about the message on Thursday.

“I think the president’s Truth speaks for itself,” Vice President JD Vance said as he took questions from reporters at the White House. “We have a big arsenal. Obviously, the Russians have a large nuclear arsenal. The Chinese have a large nuclear arsenal. Sometimes you’ve got to test it to make sure that it’s functioning and working properly.”

“To be clear, we know that it does work properly,” he added later, “but you got to keep on top of it over time, and the president just wants to make sure that we do that.”

Dating back to his first term, Trump has always maintained a somewhat complicated relationship to the nuclear weapons he can launch from a secure suitcase anywhere he goes.

A product of the nuclear era, he recently voiced wariness at even mentioning the word itself: “We can’t let people throw around that word,” the president told generals last month. “I call it the n-word. There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”

He seemed less cautious in his Truth Social message this week.

“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” he wrote. “This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice!”

Afterwards, Trump was circumspect about what tests, precisely, he was asking for.

“With others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also,” Trump said aboard Air Force One as he was returning to Washington.

He said nuclear test sites would be determined later, and specified his message did not relate to China — even though he named the country specifically in his message. “It had to do with others,” he said vaguely.

Some officials said Trump may have been prompted by Moscow’s test flights in recent days of nuclear-capable cruise missiles and torpedoes, though their existence was already known and the tests did not involve a nuclear detonation. There is also no US equivalent to those Russian systems that could be tested to demonstrate equivalence, because the US decided decades ago that developing those systems was unproductive, said a former Trump administration official who worked on nuclear issues.

Neither China nor Russia have conducted a nuclear test in decades. While China has worked rapidly to expand its arsenal, it is not known to have conducted an explosive test since 1996.

Beijing’s speedy buildup in nuclear weapons has nonetheless generated concern among administration officials, who regard the issue as yet another point of friction in an increasingly tense relationship. Xi presided over a flashy parade of China’s nuclear-capable missiles last month.

“Russia has nearly completed their modernization of all of their nuclear forces, and China is modernizing, and they are growing their arsenal at a breathtaking speed,” Elbridge Colby, the US undersecretary of defense for policy, said during his confirmation hearing this year.

Still, if Trump was ordering up the first test of a US nuclear explosive since 1992, it came as news to the military officer he nominated to oversee the nation’s vast arsenal of nuclear weapons.

“I wouldn’t presume that the president’s words meant nuclear testing,” Vice Adm. Richard Correll, whom Trump tapped to head up US Strategic Command, said before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

“I believe the quote was, ‘start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis,’” Correll went on. “Neither China or Russia has conducted a nuclear explosive test, so I’m not reading anything into it or reading anything out to it.”

If confirmed to the position, Correll would be responsible for the more than 41,000 service members who look after components of the US nuclear weapons program, including submarines, ballistic missiles and Air Force bomber aircraft. He has served as the deputy commander of US Strategic Command since 2022 — so it’d be unusual if he didn’t know know about a change in the decadeslong moratorium on nuclear testing.

The Trump administration has not changed the nuclear modernization policy that was put into place during the final year of the Biden administration, with the aim of pivoting the strategic plan to deter China’s nuclear buildup. But carrying out a nuclear test could set back that modernization strategy because it would reorient the focus of the officials working on those ongoing efforts, according to former US officials who worked on nuclear issues.

There are also concerns among those officials that Trump declaring the intent for US nuclear testing would actually benefit China — not the US.

“The mere suggestion that the US may resume nuclear testing could give the green light to China to resume explosive testing, and the Chinese would benefit comparatively more than anyone else if testing resumed. There is no technical reason for the US to do this now. But for China, it could technically advance their capabilities,” a former senior US official said.

Yet Trump has long approached nuclear weapons with a combination of morbid fascination and bombastic threats.

In August, he announced he was ordering two nuclear submarines to be strategically positioned near Russia in response to what he said were aggressive remarks by Dmitry Medvedev, the country’s former president and current deputy chairman of its Security Council. He never clarified whether he was referring to subs with nuclear weapon capabilities, or merely nuclear-powered subs.

In a particularly heated moment from his first term, Trump taunted North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — whose 2017 underground test is the last known example of explosive nuclear testing — for the relative size of his “nuclear button.”

“I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Trump wrote on social media in 2018.

He and Kim eventually improved relations and met in person three times — though Trump was never able to convince the despot to abandon his nuclear weapons.

Now, Trump appears hopeful to begin tests quickly — though just how quickly may depend on his willingness to break international rules.

“If the United States needed to conduct an immediate nuclear test to, say, verify that some of its weapons were working or for political purposes, it could violate a whole number of treaties that ban doing that in the atmosphere. And that could happen in a matter of weeks or maybe months,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council, who now is director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists.

“The United States has a test site just outside Nevada where we conducted these tests in the 1990s and before,” he added.

“But it’s not poised to conduct testing anytime soon, and it takes years to scientifically instrument a test to make sure you’re getting the data out of it that you need. And I also assume that states like Nevada and others would sue to block the president’s ability to do this. So we’re several years away from being able to conduct explosive nuclear tests.”

Trump tells Pentagon to resume testing US nuclear weapons

Summary

• Decision follows China’s expansion of nuclear stockpile
• Kremlin reacts cautiously to Trump’s nuclear remarks
• Russia’s recent nuclear tests include Poseidon super torpedo
• Pentagon expects Chinese arsenal to exceed 1,000 by 2030

 

BUSAN, South Korea, Oct 30 (Reuters) – President Donald Trumpon Thursday ordered the U.S. military to immediately restart the process for testing nuclear weapons after a halt of 33 years, a move that appeared to be a message to rival nuclear powers China and Russia.

Trump made the surprise announcement on Truth Social while aboard his Marine One helicopter flying to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for a trade-negotiating session in Busan, South Korea.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately,” Trump posted.

“Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years.”

It was not immediately clear whether Trump was referring to nuclear-explosive testing, which would be carried out by the National Nuclear Security Administration, or flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles.

No nuclear power – other than North Korea most recently in 2017 – has carried out explosive nuclear testing in over 25 years.

Post-Soviet Russia has never tested. The Soviet Union last tested in 1990, and China in 1996. Trump’s fellow Republican, President George H.W. Bush, announced a U.S. testing moratorium in 1992 after the last U.S test in September that year.

Russia – which tested a new nuclear-powered cruise missile on October 21, held nuclear readiness drills on October 22 and tested a new nuclear-powered autonomous torpedo on October 28 – said it hoped Trump had been properly informed that Moscow had not tested an actual nuclear weapon itself.

“President Trump mentioned in his statement that other countries are engaged in testing nuclear weapons. Until now, we didn’t know that anyone was testing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Putin, who commands the world’s biggest arsenal of nuclear warheads, has repeatedly said that if any country tests a nuclear weapon then Russia will do so too.

Xi Jinping has more than doubled China’s nuclear warhead arsenal to an estimated 600 nuclear weapons in the past five years, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested two new nuclear-powered weapons in recent days.

China’s Foreign Ministry called for the U.S. to abide by its commitment to a moratorium on nuclear testing and uphold the global strategic balance and stability.

Robert Floyd, head of the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, expressed alarm.

“Any explosive nuclear weapon test by any state would be harmful and destabilising for global non-proliferation efforts and for international peace and security,” he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly said current nuclear risks are already alarmingly high and urged countries to avoid all actions that could lead to miscalculation or escalation with “catastrophic” consequences, said deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq.

“As he has said, we must never forget the disastrous legacy of over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests carried out over the last 80 years, and that nuclear testing can never be permitted under any circumstances,” said Haq.

NUCLEAR TESTING SITES TO BE DETERMINED

Later, on his way back to Washington, Trump said testing was needed to ensure the U.S. keeps up with rival nuclear powers.

“With others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also,” Trump said on board Air Force One, adding that nuclear test sites would be determined later.

Asked whether the world was entering a more risky phase around nuclear weapons, Trump dismissed the threat, saying U.S. stocks were “well locked up” before adding that he would welcome denuclearisation.

“I’d like to see a denuclearisation because we have so many and Russia’s second and China’s third and China will catch up within four or five years,” he said.

“We are actually talking to Russia about that and China would be added to that if we do something.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters it was important to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal “actually functions properly, and that’s part of a testing regime.”

RUSSIAN TESTS

Trump addressed the Russian moves on his way to Asia earlier this week, telling reporters that Putin should be working to end the war in Ukraine “instead of testing missiles”.

The United States has a stockpile of 5,225 nuclear warheads and Russia has 5,580, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group advocating nuclear nonproliferation agreements.

The Pentagon estimates that China will have more than 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030.

Military analysts say the Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo Putin said Russia had successfully tested is capable of devastating coastal regions by triggering vast radioactive ocean swells. Both it and Burevestnik cruise missile are nuclear-capable.

U.S. Democratic Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who co-chairs the congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, said he was introducing legislation to prevent Trump from restarting nuclear testing by forbidding funding for it.

“A Trumpatomics plan would provoke Russia and China to resume nuclear testing, and China in particular has much more to gain from this than does the United States,” he said in a statement.

“This is a reckless directive from Trump that will only make the country and the world less safe and lead to a terrible new nuclear arms race.”

Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, said it would take the U.S. at least 36 months to resume contained nuclear tests underground at the former test site in Nevada.

“Trump is misinformed and out of touch. The U.S. has no technical, military or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing,” he said, warning that Trump’s announcement could “trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by U.S. adversaries, and blow apart the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

In August, Trump said he had discussed nuclear arms control with Putin and wanted China to get involved. Beijing responded by saying it was “unreasonable and unrealistic” to ask the country to join in nuclear disarmament negotiations since its arsenal was much smaller.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Ismail Shakil, Kanishka Singh and Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Francois Murphy, David Brunnstrom, Michelle Nichols and Simon Lewis; Editing by Stephen Coates, Kate Mayberry, Mark Heinrich, Nia Williams and Deepa Babington

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