Trump calls for ‘getting rid’ of nuclear weapons
US President Donald Trump has said all countries should abandon nuclear weapons instead of engaging in an arms race.
“It’d be great if everybody would get rid of their nuclear weapons,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, according to Anadolu.
“Russia and us have by far the most. China will have an equal amount within four or five years, and it would be great if we could all denuclearize, because the power of nuclear weapons is crazy. It’s crazy.”
“I would very much like to start those talks,” Trump added. “Denuclearization would be incredible.”
Last month, Trump argued that a nuclear arms race would be wasteful and that the US has “no reason” to build new weapons. “We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive.”
The comments come amid tensions between Russia and NATO, as well as Trump’s trade war with China.
In a speech earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron labeled Russia “a threat to France and Europe” and suggested that France could extend its nuclear umbrella to protect other EU member states. The Kremlin has condemned his words as “highly confrontational.”
During Trump’s first term in office, the US withdrew from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Russia has condemned the withdrawal and denied Washington’s accusations that it was secretly violating the accord.
In 2023, Russia announced the deployment of its nuclear weapons in Belarus, citing tensions with NATO. A year later, President Vladimir Putin revised Russia’s official nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons. Moscow also warned that it could resume nuclear tests if the US does it first.
In January, the US announced the deployment of upgraded nuclear bombs in its bases in Europe. According to media reports, the Pentagon also plans to station nuclear weapons in the UK.
Russia has urged all nuclear powers to act responsibly. “We have never started discussions on what to do with nuclear weapons or whether they can be used,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in December. “There can be no winners in a nuclear war, which is why it should never happen.”
