Amid talk of the United States potentially resuming its own nuclear weapons testing, President Donald Trump explained that it was needed because many countries such as China, Russia, North Korea and Pakistan were conducting nuclear tests and it was “appropriate for the U.S. to do so as well.”
In an interview with CBS News, Trump said: “Russia’s testing and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it. We’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it because otherwise you’re going to report it. They don’t have reporters to write about it.”
He added: “We will test because they are testing and others are testing. And certainly North Korea has tested. Pakistan has tested.”
Trump claimed that the US “doesn’t need to know” where these “powerful” countries are that are testing nuclear weapons; however, they say testing is ongoing. He mentioned, “They – test deep under – – underground where people don’t know exactly what’s going on with the test. You feel a little vibration. They test and we don’t test. We have to test.”
Trump stated: “You have to see how they’re working. The reason I say testing is because Russia has announced that they’re going to test. If you notice, North Korea is testing all the time. Other countries are testing. We’re the only country that’s not testing. And I don’t want to be the only country that’s not testing.” He disclosed that the US has “more nuclear weapons than any other country” and added that he had discussed denuclearization with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump said: “We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times. Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons and China is going to have a lot of them. They have some. They have quite a few.”
“These are not nuclear explosions”
Meanwhile, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has indicated that US nuclear weapons testing sought by President Donald Trump is likely to be halted for the time being before actual warhead tests.
In an interview with Fox News’ The Sunday Briefing, Duffy said, “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are systemic tests. They’re not nuclear explosions. We call that non-critical explosions.” Those tests stress “all the other parts of the nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and set up the nuclear explosion,” he added.
The United States has not conducted an explosion test of a nuclear weapon since 1992, when former President George HW Bush imposed a moratorium.
