In a move that has sent shockwaves across the global security landscape, U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he has directed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing — a practice the United States halted more than three decades ago.
The surprise declaration came just minutes before Trump’s high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, underscoring rising tensions between the world’s leading powers.
“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote in a social media post referencing both Russia and China.
The announcement followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim on Wednesday that Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered underwater drone, dubbed Poseidon, which he described as “impossible to intercept.”
Trump, defending his decision, said the U.S. needed to “match the pace” of its rivals’ weapons development, adding that the U.S. arsenal had undergone “a complete update and renovation.” He boasted that “the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country,” noting that “Russia is second, and China is a distant third.”
The order marks a dramatic shift in U.S. nuclear policy since the last American test in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush imposed a moratorium that subsequent administrations upheld. Since then, the U.S. has relied on subcritical and computer-simulated experiments to maintain its nuclear stockpile.
Trump did not specify the timeline or scope of the new testing but said it would “begin immediately.”
Global disarmament advocates condemned the decision, warning it could unravel decades of arms control progress and trigger a new nuclear arms race. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called the move “reckless and destabilizing,” urging world leaders to intervene.
The United States and Russia together hold roughly 10,500 of the world’s 12,000 nuclear warheads, according to ICAN data.
Trump’s announcement adds fresh uncertainty to already fragile international relations, as Washington, Moscow, and Beijing navigate rising military competition and deteriorating arms control frameworks.
