U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the Department of War to immediately resume testing nuclear weapons on an equal basis with other atomic powers.
Trump’s instruction to Pentagon came just before his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He cited growing nuclear capabilities of China and Russia and said they would be even with the United States in five years.
The United States will resume testing nuclear weapons after more than three decades. The Pentagon last tested a nuclear weapons in 1992.
“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,” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social site.
“Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within five years,” Trump noted.
Currently, the United States has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, Trump said in the post.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo.
The torpedo is said to have the lethal capability to cause radioactive ocean swells and destroy coastal regions.
In response to new U.S. sanctions Russia has adopted an aggressive posture, carrying out a cruise missile test and holding military exercises.
While U.S.-Russia relations have grown more tense due to protracted Ukraine war, the U.S. and China are engaged in a trade war, with implications for the world economies.
Trump will meet Xi on the sidelines of a major Asian event, where the two countries are expected to advance a broad agreement towards a trade deal worked out by officials of the two largest economies.
The trade negotiations took place in the backdrop of Washington’s decision to impose tariffs on trading partners to fix what the U.S. president calls unfair trade practices, and Beijing’s move to restrict exports of rare earth minerals, considered key ingredients in manufacturing technological and defense equipment.
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Ali Imran is a Washington-based journalist, who has worked for leading world news organizations as a correspondent, expert and in editorial positions. He is a published author and poet.
