United States President, Donald Trump, has claimed that several nations, including Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan, have been secretly conducting underground nuclear tests, asserting that the United States would soon follow their lead.
In an interview aired Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Trump alleged that these countries were testing nuclear weapons away from public scrutiny.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” he said. “I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” he added, including North Korea and Pakistan among those allegedly running covert nuclear operations.
“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 have to talk about it, because otherwise your people are gonna report—they don’t have reporters that gonna be writing about it. We do. No, we’re gonna test, because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing,” the president reiterated.
Uncertainty has surrounded Trump’s directive for the U.S. to resume nuclear testing, particularly whether he intends to authorize the country’s first nuclear explosion since 1992.
The 79-year-old Republican initially made the declaration on social media last Thursday, shortly before a scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.
The announcement followed reports that Russia had recently tested a new nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik, as well as a nuclear-powered underwater drone capable of carrying nuclear payloads.
When pressed during the CBS interview on whether he planned to detonate a nuclear device, Trump replied, “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.”
No other nation besides North Korea has officially carried out a nuclear detonation in decades, Russia and China’s last known tests date back to 1990 and 1996, respectively.
“They don’t go and tell you about it,” Trump insisted. “As powerful as they are, this is a big world. You don’t necessarily know where they’re testing. They test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration,” he added.
Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Chris Wright sought to temper speculation about an imminent nuclear explosion, explaining on Fox News that the administration was instead referring to “system tests.”
“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions,” Wright clarified. “These are what we call ‘non-critical explosions,’ so you’re testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.”
The United States has been a signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty since 1996, which prohibits all nuclear explosions for both military and civilian purposes.
Nevertheless, Trump defended his call for renewed testing, arguing that Washington should not remain the only power exercising restraint while rivals continue to advance their arsenals.
He acknowledged, however, that the United States already possesses an overwhelming nuclear stockpile.
“We have more nuclear weapons than any other country. And I think we should do something about denuclearisation. I discussed that with both President Putin and President Xi. We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times. Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons, and China will have a lot,” Trump stated.
