Trump issued the directive moments before his highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said, “The United States has
more Nuclear Weapons than any other country”.
He named Russia as second and China as “a distant third” but
catching up.
“Because of other countries testing programs, I have
instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an
equal basis,” Trump said, adding that the process will begin immediately.
Though the US president did not explicitly refer to Russia
and China as currently conducting nuclear weapon tests, the announcement
signals a potential new arms race with the two nations.
The US and China have been involved in a prolonged trade
dispute that many geopolitics experts say closely mirrors the cold war.
Meanwhile, Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine has further
strained its already tense relations with Western nations.
Last month, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
intercepted three Russian warplanes violating Estonia’s airspace.
It came a week after Poland and Romania, two NATO member
states, reported similar incidents.
The European Union (EU) called the violation an “extremely
dangerous provocation”.
Neither Russia nor China has conducted live nuclear tests
since the 1990s.
The US last conducted a nuclear test in 1992, when it began
a voluntary moratorium on such explosive testing.
Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons but has not
publicly tested them.
Both the US and Israel have accused Iran of nuclear weapons
development and testing activities, but the Persian country has repeatedly
denied the claims.
In June, the US bombed three nuclear sites in Iran as part
of a military campaign to destroy Tehran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
North Korea is the only country to have publicly conducted
nuclear tests in recent times, with six public underground tests from 2006 to
2017.
Trump has publicly campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize,
portraying himself as a “peacemaker” while touting his ability to “end wars”.
His latest remarks, however, stand in sharp contrast to that
image and could potentially escalate global tensions.
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