American President Donald Trump, a drastic change in relation to American policy in force for more than three decades.
According to Trump, the decision to resume testing is necessary so that the country “does not fall behind powers like Russia and China”.
“Due to the testing programs of other countries, I have instructed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on equal terms,” he wrote on his social media before leaving for the meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.
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Trump made the announcement on social media moments before Xi Jinping arrived in South Korea. The post went live while the president was traveling aboard the Marine One helicopter, on his way to Gimhae International Airport, to welcome the Chinese leader.
Furthermore, Trump recognized the “tremendous destructive power” of nuclear weapons in his publication, stating that he “had no choice” when deciding that it was time to modernize the arsenal. He also highlighted that the USA has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, followed by Russia and China, which, according to him, “will be on par [com os EUA] within five years.”
…and after Putin’s new step
The announcement comes just days after Putin unveiled the , and the Burevestnik cruise missile, both nuclear-powered. None of the Russian tests involved the detonation of warheads, but they were interpreted as shows of force in the face of the stalemate in the war in Ukraine.
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After the meeting with Xi, Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One that the test sites have yet to be defined, but considered it “appropriate” for the US to keep pace with its rivals.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China has almost doubled its nuclear arsenal in the last five years and is expected to surpass the 1,000 warhead mark by 2030. Currently, the US has around 5,225 nuclear weapons, and Russia, 5,580, according to the Arms Control Association.
Historical turn
Trump’s post comes about 100 days before the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (known as New Start), in February 2026. This is the last nuclear control pact still in force between the United States and Russia. The agreement limits 1,550 nuclear warheads per country, all installed on long-range missiles capable of hitting intercontinental targets.
The United States has not carried out nuclear tests since 1992, when then-President George HW Bush declared a moratorium following the end of the Cold War.
The last nuclear test carried out by the US took place on September 23 of that year, in an underground facility in the state of Nevada. Named Divider, the experiment was the 1,054th test conducted by the country, according to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, responsible for developing the first atomic bomb in history.
The field where the last test took place is located 105 km north of Las Vegas and is still operated by the US government. The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, linked to the Smithsonian Institution, said the site could be reauthorized for nuclear weapons testing.
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The US entered the nuclear age with the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb in July 1945 in the Alamogordo Desert of New Mexico. Then, the USA became the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in war, after dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August of the same year, during World War II.
