US President Donald Trump on Friday hinted at resuming underground nuclear tests, but did not confirm whether the United States would actually begin doing so.
“You’re going to find out very soon,” the US president told reporters aboard Air Force One.
In response to a question from the AFP news agency, Trump said the US would resume nuclear testing if other countries did so, but remained vague about the type of test he was referring to.
“We will do some tests, yes, and other countries will do it. If they do it, we will do it,” he said during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida.
Will the US resume nuclear tests?
Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the US War Department to immediately begin testing US nuclear weapons, in what appeared to be a message to China and Russia.
Bragging about the number of nuclear weapons the U.S. possesses, Trump said Russia and China are second and third to America but will soon be equal.
“The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my first term. I HATED it because of the overwhelming destructive power, but I had no choice! Russia is second and China is a distant third, but it will be even within 5 years,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said the US action was being triggered by other countries conducting nuclear tests.
“Because of the testing programs in other countries, I have directed the War Department to begin testing our nuclear weapons on the same basis. This process will begin immediately.”
The move marks the first time in 33 years that the US has conducted a nuclear test. The first such test was conducted in 1945 and the last on September 23, 1992, underground at the Nevada Test Site.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump was referring to nuclear explosive tests conducted by the National Nuclear Security Administration or flight tests of nuclear missiles.
Apart from North Korea, which conducted its last known explosive nuclear weapons test in 2017, no other nuclear power has conducted such a test in more than 25 years.
Trump told reporters on his way back to Washington on Thursday that the US would conduct tests if other countries did, adding that sites for the same would be determined later.
“I would like to see denuclearization because we have so many and Russia second and China third and China will catch up within four or five years,” he said.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its latest annual report that Russia possesses 5,459 nuclear warheads, compared to 5,177 in the United States and 600 in China.
