By Emmanuel Nduka Obisue
U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to begin nuclear weapons testing “on an equal basis” with China and Russia, a move that marks a dramatic shift in U.S. nuclear policy just minutes before his high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Trump announced the directive on social media Thursday, citing recent nuclear activities by both Moscow and Beijing. “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” he said, directly referencing Russia and China.
The decision follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim on Wednesday that Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone, defying Washington’s repeated warnings.
Trump emphasized that the United States already possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and credited his administration with upgrading and modernizing existing stockpiles. “Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within five years,” he added.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) estimates that nine countries possess nuclear arms — Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea — with a combined total of about 12,331 warheads. Of these, Russia controls roughly 5,500, while the U.S. holds 5,044.
While Trump did not specify the scope or location of the planned tests, he said the process would “begin immediately”.
Putin, meanwhile, described his newly tested “Poseidon” underwater drone as unstoppable. “There is no way to intercept it,” he said in televised remarks from a Russian military hospital. The drone, he claimed, can dive deep, travel faster than conventional submarines, and strike targets anywhere in the world.
Following Putin’s earlier test of a cruise missile on Sunday, Trump criticized the Russian leader, urging him to end the war in Ukraine “instead of testing missiles”. A planned summit between the two leaders in Budapest last week was abruptly canceled.
The United States last conducted a nuclear test in September 1992, detonating a 20-kiloton device underground at the Nevada Nuclear Security Site. A moratorium imposed the following month by President George H.W. Bush ended full-scale nuclear testing, which was later replaced by computer simulations and subcritical experiments.
Trump’s new directive, announced as he meets Xi in South Korea, signals a potential end to that 33-year hiatus and could heighten tensions among the world’s nuclear powers.
