(Headline USA) President Donald Trump appears to be serious about his vision for a world without nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, during a White House press briefing, Trump stressed yet again his desire to get rid of nukes.
“It would be great if everybody would get rid of their nuclear weapons. [I know] Russia and us have by far the most,” the president said to reporters. “China will have an equal amount within four to five years. It would be great if we could all de-nuclearize because the power of nuclear weapons is crazy.”
So far, only nine nations — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel — have nuclear armaments.
As the current international order breaks down, nations are increasingly retooling their nuclear arsenals and even expanding them to confront the challenges of great power competition.
Per reports from the Defense Intelligence Agency, China has plans of increasing its production of nuclear weapons. In 2024, the agency issued a projection that China could have north of 1,000 nuclear weapons within its arsenal.
In the first days of his second term, Trump claims to have spoken with President Vladimir Putin about denuclearization during his first term, and that Putin was interested in the proposal. “We were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along. China right now has a much smaller nuclear armament than us, or field, than us, but they’re going to be catching [up] at some point,” Trump revealed.
“I will tell you that President Putin really liked the idea of cutting back on nuclear, and I think the rest of the world, we would have gotten them to follow, and China would have come along too. China also liked it,” he continued. “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about. It’s too depressing.”
In a similar vein, Trump has floated the idea of hammering out a deal with China and Russia to have all three nuclear powers sharply slash defense spending.
Adapted from reporting by Kyle Anzalone the Libertarian Institute.
