Washington — U.S. President Donald Trump has defended his administration’s push to resume nuclear weapons testing after more than three decades, pointing to activities by nations like Pakistan and China as the rationale for breaking the long-standing moratorium.
Speaking ahead of his recent summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump declared that the United States would conduct tests on par with those of its adversaries. In a Sunday interview with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell, he specifically called out Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan for their ongoing nuclear experiments.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it. You know, we’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it…. We’re gonna test, because they test and others test,” Trump stated. He added, “And certainly, North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing.”
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The announcement came via social media just before Trump’s Thursday meeting with Xi in South Korea on October 30. Trump argued that some countries carry out these tests covertly, often underground, without public disclosure. “They don’t go and tell you about it. You don’t necessarily know where they’re testing. They test way under – underground, where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test,” he explained.
The context was heightened by recent disclosures from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who last week confirmed that Russia had tested a Poseidon nuclear-capable super torpedo.
Trump emphasized the practical need for testing to verify the effectiveness of America’s arsenal. “They (other countries) test, and we don’t test. We have to test. And Russia did make — a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were gonna do certain forms of a different level of testing. But Russia tests, China — and China does test, and we’re gonna test also,” he said. “You make nuclear weapons, and then you don’t test. How are you gonna do that? How are you gonna know if they work?”
U.S. media reports note that while the American military routinely evaluates missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads, no actual detonations have occurred since 1992.
During the same CBS interview, Trump revisited his claims of resolving multiple global conflicts, asserting he had “knocked out eight wars.” He listed them as Cambodia-Thailand, Kosovo-Serbia, Congo-Rwanda, Israel-Iran, Egypt-Ethiopia, Israel-Hamas, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and India-Pakistan. The only unresolved one, he said, was the Russia-Ukraine war, which he predicted would soon end.
Trump credited tariffs and trade pressures for many of these breakthroughs. “It did work with India, and it did work with Pakistan, and it did work with — 60 per cent of those countries. I can tell you, if it wasn’t for tariffs and trade, I wouldn’t have been able to make the deals,” he remarked. Regarding the India-Pakistan standoff, he quoted Pakistan’s prime minister: “The Prime Minister of Pakistan stood up the other day and he said, ‘If Donald Trump didn’t get involved, many millions of people would be dead right now.’ That was a bad war he was ready to start.”
India, however, has repeatedly stated that the ceasefire agreement with Pakistan stemmed from direct discussions between the Directors General of Military Operations of both armies.
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