U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military on Thursday to immediately resume testing nuclear weapons after a gap of 33 years.
Trump made the surprise announcement on Truth Social while he was aboard his Marine One helicopter flying to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for a trade negotiating session in Busan, South Korea. He said he was instructing the Pentagon to test the U.S. nuclear arsenal on an “equal basis” with other nuclear powers.
It came one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo that military analysts say is capable of devastating coastal regions by triggering vast radioactive ocean swells.
“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 said on his social media platform, Truth Social, ahead of the meeting with Xi in South Korea.
“Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years,” Trump noted.
China rebukes Trump plan
Trump’s decision to restart nuclear weapons testing follows a rapid expansion by China of its nuclear stockpile in recent years.
Beijing has more than doubled the size of its arsenal to an estimated 600 nuclear weapons in 2025 from 300 weapons in 2020, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank.
It said U.S. military officials estimate that China will have more than 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030. A Victory Day parade in September revealed five nuclear capabilities that can all reach the continental United States, CSIS said.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson called on the U.S. to refrain from carrying out nuclear tests.
“China hopes the U.S. will earnestly fulfil its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban and honour its commitment to suspend nuclear testing,” Guo Jiakun said at a briefing in Beijing.
U.S., Russia all but abandon treaty
Later, on his way back to Washington, Trump said testing was needed to ensure the U.S. keeps up with its 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 he would welcome denuclearization.
“We are actually talking to Russia about that and China would be added to that if we do something.”
The Washington-based Arms Control Association says the United States has a stockpile of 5,225 nuclear warheads and Russia has 5,580.
Putin said on Wednesday Russia had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo that military analysts say is capable of devastating coastal regions by triggering vast radioactive ocean swells.
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the resumption of nuclear weapons tests for the first time since 1992. A day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia had successfully tested a nuclear-powered super torpedo.
As Trump has toughened both his rhetoric and his stance on Russia, Putin has publicly flexed his nuclear muscles with the test of a new Burevestnik cruise missile on Oct. 21 and nuclear launch drills on Oct. 22.
Putin in 2023 signed a bill revoking Russia’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban, which Moscow said was needed to put Russia on par with the U.S.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was adopted in 1996 and bans all nuclear explosions anywhere in the world, was signed by former U.S. president Bill Clinton but never ratified by the Senate.
In the five decades between 1945 and the 1996 treaty adoption, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out, 1,032 of them by the United States and 715 of them by the Soviet Union, according to the United Nations.
Britain carried out 45 tests, France 210 and China 45.
Since the treaty adoption, 10 nuclear tests have taken place. India conducted two in 1998, Pakistan also two in 1998, and North Korea conducted a half-dozen tests between 2006 and 2017, according to the United Nations.
The United States last tested in 1992, China and France in 1996 and the Soviet Union in 1990. Russia, which inherited most of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, has never done so.
Russia in 2023 said it would only resume tests of its nuclear weapons if Washington did it first.
Unanswered questions for U.S. tests
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, has carried out explosive testing in more than 25 years.
The Trump administration will furlough about 1,400 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency that manages the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, due to the government shutdown, the Department of Energy said.
The reaction to Trump’s announcement on testing was swift.
Representative Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada, said on X: “I’ll be introducing legislation to put a stop to this.”
Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, said it would take the United States 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 for the first time since 1992,” Kimball said on X.
Trump’s announcement could “trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by U.S. adversaries, and blow apart the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said.
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 with the two countries, since its arsenal was much smaller.
Trump had first laid out his intention to pursue nuclear arms control efforts in February, saying he wanted to begin discussions with both Putin and Xi about imposing limits on heir arsenals.
