On Oct. 29, President Donald Trump made a Truth Social post stating he instructed the Department of War, officially the Department of Defense, to start nuclear weapons testing on an “equal basis” to those of Russia and China.
Two days later, on Oct. 31, Trump was interviewed on CBS’s program “60 Minutes.” Among other topics, he spoke more on nuclear weapons testing. He claimed that because North Korea, Russia and China are performing weapons testing, the U.S. needs to resume testing to keep up. Specifically, he claimed that “they test way … underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don’t test.” Trump seems to imply that detonation tests are being performed underground in these countries, but this interpretation is not confirmed.
Following Trump’s interview, Energy Secretary Chris Wright spoke on Trump’s statements. He shared, “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests … these are non-critical explosions … you’re testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon.” This statement still follows the general sense of uncertainty regarding Trump’s intentions.
There is no evidence that Russia or China was conducting nuclear weapons testing at the time.
President Vladimir Putin responded to these claims in The Kremlin, sharing, “I’d like to say that Russia has always strictly adhered to and continues to adhere to its commitments under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and we have no plans to walk away from those obligations.” Russia has, however, tested cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads. One of these tests involving the 9M730 Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered nuclear-armed missile, resulted in an explosion and spike in radiation on Aug. 8, 2019. It is possible that Trump was referring to these missile tests in his interview, though it is unclear why he would describe underground tests if this was the case. Though Russia confirms it has been following the treaty thus far, Putin has ordered officials to draft proposals to resume nuclear weapons testing in response to Trump’s statements.
Chinese officials have also refuted Trump’s claim; Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated in a press briefing that as a “responsible nuclear-weapons state, China has always … upheld a self-defense nuclear strategy and abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear testing.”
As of now, it is still unclear what Trump’s plans are. He expressed the desire to test on an “equal basis” as other countries, but described testing procedures that these countries deny performing. The obscure statements allow both citizens and foreign lead government officials to assume the worst, causing tensions to rise. In a post on X, Russia’s Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev shared this sentiment, saying, “No one knows what Trump meant about ‘nuclear testing’ (he probably doesn’t himself). But he’s the president of the United States. And the consequences of such words are inescapable: Russia will be forced to assess the expediency of conducting full-fledged nuclear tests itself.”