‘We Are Only Country Doesn’t Test’ – Trump Defends Nuclear Move Amid Global Alarm

WASHINGTON, DC – US President Donald Trump confirmed Sunday that his country would resume testing nuclear weapons, a stunning declaration that would end a three-decade-old moratorium and dramatically escalate global nuclear tensions. Trump argued that the move is necessary to keep pace with nuclear rivals he claims are already violating international norms. His comments, made in a televised interview and coming just days after directing the Pentagon to begin testing, immediately prompted a clarifying statement from a key cabinet member, who specified that the tests would not involve atomic detonations. Trump’s unapologetic stance and claims Trump was unapologetic about the directive, which he announced on social media less than an hour before a high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He framed the decision as a necessary response to what he described as secret or undisclosed testing by foreign powers. “North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We are the only country that doesn’t test. I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” he told CBS’s 60 Minutes. When pressed on whether the United States would begin detonating nuclear weapons for testing after more than 30 years, Trump replied, “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.” He added that both Russia and China are conducting nuclear tests in secret, accusing them of concealing their activities from the world: “Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” Trump said. “You know, we’re an open society. We talk about it. We have to talk about it, because otherwise you people [the media] are going to report on it. They don’t have reporters that are going to be writing about it. We do,” he elaborated. Trump also boasted about the US nuclear stockpile, saying, “We have more nuclear weapons than any other country... We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times.” His assertions that Russia and China are conducting nuclear explosive tests contradict statements from his own administration’s defense officials. His nominee to lead STRATCOM, the admiral who oversees the US nuclear arsenal, told lawmakers last week that neither country is conducting nuclear explosive tests. Administration moves to clarify ‘system tests’ Facing global alarm over the potential resumption of nuclear explosions, the US administration moved quickly to narrow the scope of Trump’s remarks. Energy Secretary Chris Wright appeared on Fox News earlier Sunday and clarified that the administration is not currently planning to conduct nuclear explosions. Wright said the tests being discussed are “system tests,” not “nuclear explosions.” He explained that these are “non-critical explosions” involving “all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and set up the nuclear explosion,” but notably exclude actual atomic detonations. When asked if residents near the Nevada testing site should prepare for a “mushroom cloud,” Wright was definitive: “No, no worries about that.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth added that the Pentagon is moving “quickly” on the directive, saying Trump “was clear: We need a credible nuclear deterrent.” Decades-old moratorium and global context The US has observed a voluntary moratorium on nuclear explosive testing since 1992, when the last test was conducted underground at the Nevada National Security Site. While Washington signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, which bars all nuclear test explosions, the Senate rejected its ratification in 1999, preventing the treaty from fully entering into force. Globally, only North Korea has conducted a nuclear test detonation this century, with its last known test in 2017. Both Russia and China are currently believed to be testing only delivery systems – such as missiles – for nuclear weapons, not the warheads themselves. Despite the testing halt, the US maintains one of the world’s largest and most advanced nuclear arsenals.