Trump’s talk of resuming nuclear tests ratchets up tensions with Moscow, Beijing

President Trump’s threat to resume nuclear weapons tests has sparked unease in Moscow and Beijing, and triggered frustration among some U.S. non-proliferation experts who say the administration is sending mixed signals on an intensely sensitive global security issue.

The president announced Oct. 29 that ending Washington’s more than three-decade moratorium on tests is warranted because Russian and Chinese nuclear stockpiles are approaching U.S. levels and because other nations are already involved in some degree of testing.

The comments underscored growing uncertainty on the future of global non-proliferation standards, and raised the question of whether the world is heading into a new era of great power nuclear detonation tests.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Mr. Trump is justified in airing his options, creating a setting for the potentially major policy shift.

“The principle must be, we need to do everything necessary to convince our adversaries that we know our stuff will work,” Mr. Pompeo told The Washington Times in an interview. “That would include testing of the weapons themselves, if that’s what’s required.”

A Truth Social trigger

Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that “Because of other [countries’] testing programs,” he would have “the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.” Days later, in an interview with 60 Minutes, he doubled down, saying the U.S. is “the only country that doesn’t test” its nuclear weapons.

The comments triggered swift blowback. Beijing sharply denied it has carried out any nuclear tests in recent years, while Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by signaling that his government will now actively consider testing. Officials in Moscow also said they are seeking more information on what the U.S. policy shift on testing actually entails.

The developments have also drawn eye-opening reactions from U.S. non-proliferation experts, including Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the non-government Arms Control Association, who says he and his colleagues want more information as well.

“The Russians say they want to talk. The Chinese say they want to talk,” Mr. Kimball told The Times. “What does [Mr. Trump] want out of the Chinese or the Russians, if he’s threatening nuclear testing as his big threat?”

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said in the wake of Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post that the issue of nuclear testing is “too serious a substance” to leave any room for interpretation. “We really need clarification of what exactly was meant,” Mr. Peskov said in a Russian state media interview published Sunday.

Mr. Putin, meanwhile, has directed his top security advisors to begin assessing how to restart Russia’s own nuclear testing programs, and top-ranking Russian generals have said they’re ready to resume the programs.

With that as a backdrop, Mr. Pompeo told The Times that the current situation represents a direct test of the deterrence model under which nuclear weapons have existed since the Cold War — a model that, in many ways, is defined by a delicate dance between great powers around what cards to play publicly and privately to maintain peace.

“The central premise of deterrence is that our adversaries know that our stuff will actually work, and that they know we’re confident that it will,” said Mr. Pompeo, who served first as CIA director, then a secretary of state in Mr. Trump’s first term.

Critical nuclear explosive testing by Russia, China or the United States would violate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty the countries signed in 1996, though none of the three ever fully ratified. The treaty has 187 countries worldwide that have signed and support it, with North Korea being the only country to conduct widely-known nuclear detonation tests since — most recently in 2017.

Russia claims it has only conducted noncritical nuclear testing over the years.

During the days leading up to Mr. Trump’s Oct. 29 Truth Social posting, Russian officials revealed that they had recently conducted tests of different nuclear weapon delivery vehicles. The Burevestnik RS-SSC-X-09, a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable intercontinental cruise missile known as Skyfall, as well as the Poseidon, a large nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable uncrewed underwater vehicle. Both underwent tests.

For its own part, the United States has also carried out delivery system tests, including of the nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in an interview with Fox News last week that any future U.S. tests would not violate non-proliferation treaties that Washington has signed. “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are systems tests,” he explained. “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”

Clarity needed

Mr. Kimball told The Times that there are uncertainties over the types of tests the Trump administration may be considering.

He emphasized that the White House should further clarify to other countries what Mr. Trump meant by the assertion that the United States will resume testing “on an equal basis.”

“It’s a very convoluted statement,” Mr. Kimball said, pointing out that the Department of Energy, not the Department of Defense Mr. Trump referenced in his post, maintains the U.S. arsenal of nuclear warheads and is responsible for any nuclear explosive testing.

“I’ve worked on the subject for 35 years, no other country, except for North Korea, has conducted nuclear explosive tests in this century,” Mr. Kimball said.

However, U.S. intelligence assessments appear to suggest otherwise.

Last week, Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe had confirmed to him directly that U.S. intelligence has indications of “super-critical nuclear weapons tests in excess of the U.S. zero-yield standard.”

There are questions about whether any of the three — the U.S., Russia and China — have carried out low-yield nuclear bomb tests in the classified setting, though each country claims publicly to have adhered to the no-test standards of the existing non-proliferation regime.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said last week that China has not conducted any such nuclear bomb testing in recent years.

“China is committed to peaceful development, follows a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defense, and adheres to its nuclear testing moratorium,” Ms. Mao said. “We stand ready to work with all parties to jointly uphold the authority of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.”

Russia has also denied conducting any critical explosive tests, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that the country will resume nuclear weapons tests only in reaction to other nuclear-powered nations.

The future of non-proliferation

During Mr. Pompeo’s time as secretary of state the U.S. left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. A similar argument playing out now was used then, in concert with NATO, to end the 1987 treaty signed by President Ronald Reagan.

The first Trump administration said that Russia consistently violated the treaty, making it a useless agreement that only weakened the United States.

Another non-proliferation agreement at issue is that of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The current version of the agreement, known as the “New START Treaty,” is set to expire in early February 2026. The treaty — signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev — limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.

Mr. Trump’s recent comments have spurred speculation that he is intentionally instigating conversation around nuclear testing and stockpiles ahead of re-negotiations of New START.

“I hope so,” said Mr. Pompeo, when asked about the speculation. He then stressed that while a treaty with Russia is good — even if they act as an unreliable partner on testing and standards — the need to include China in any future version of START with their growing arsenal is critical.

“The world in which those treaties were originally designed was a world where there were really only two global competitors that had weapons programs at scale,” Mr. Pompeo said. “There are now three.”

China’s current stockpile of nuclear weapons is growing rapidly, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Mr. Trump said that while the U.S. retains its lead in the number of weapons, China is expected to close that gap within five years.

In September, Mr. Putin called the New START Treaty the “last major political and diplomatic achievement in the field of strategic stability” and offered to extend the bilateral agreement for another year past its February 2026 expiration date.

Mr. Putin directed his government at the time to “maintain close oversight” of U.S. activity around strategic defense, including missile defense and space-based interceptors.

Also in September, Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Geng Shuang said Beijing remains supportive of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and stressed that “the nuclear-weapon states should all honor their moratorium commitments on nuclear testing, effectively reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies, and make clear commitments to no-first-use of nuclear weapons.”

For his own part, Mr. Trump mentioned numerous times during his campaign for president that nuclear weapons were “too powerful.” During an interview podcast with comedian Andrew Schulz in 2024, Mr. Trump claimed that his first-term administration was “close to a deal for getting rid of nuclear weapons.”

“It would be so good for all countries,” Mr. Trump said at the time.

It remains to be seen where his more recent vow to ramp up testing will lead.

Mr. Pompeo hopes it drives results toward deterrence, not distrust.

“If we’re going to have strategic arms conversations, we need those that are in possession of large quantities of strategic arms to participate,” the former secretary of state said. “Let’s get the relevant parties that can affect strategic deterrence to the table and either all agree that we’re going to limit ourselves or go on about our business.”