Trump says US to start testing nuclear weapons ‘on equal basis’ with Russia, China

US President Donald Trump says he has instructed the country’s war department to start testing nuclear weapons.

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.