President Donald Trump has floated the idea that the United States, Russia, and China could cut their nuclear weapons arsenals and refrain from building more of them as a means of reducing global tensions.
Trump proposed a joint meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, stating that his goal is for all nations to move toward denuclearization.
On Thursday, Trump told reporters that he intends to push forward with denuclearization talks once “we straighten it all out” in the Middle East and Ukraine. His remarks come as the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine actively engage in negotiations to resolve the ongoing conflict between those two countries, Fox News reported.
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,” Trump said Thursday at the White House. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,” he said.
The U.S. is expected to spend about $756 billion on nuclear weapons from 2023 to 2032, according to a Congressional Budget Office report published in 2023.
Trump also stated that he plans to meet with Xi and Putin early in his second term to propose cutting their military budgets in half. Expressing confidence in the plan, he said, “We can do that,” and indicated he had no preference on whether the meetings took place in China, Russia, or at the White House.
The U.S. has significantly reduced its nuclear arsenal since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Fox added.
As of September 2023, the U.S. maintains 3,748 nuclear warheads, a sharp decline from the 22,217 warheads in its stockpile in 1989, according to the Department of Energy. At its peak in 1966, the U.S. possessed 31,255 nuclear warheads.
By comparison, Russia holds an estimated stockpile of approximately 4,380 nuclear warheads, while China has around 600, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Trump’s remarks echo statements he made in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he expressed interest in pursuing denuclearization talks with both Russia and China.
“Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about today because you don’t want to hear it,” Trump said on Jan. 23.
Previous U.S.-Russia-China negotiations on nuclear arms control collapsed in 2020 during Trump’s first term after he declined to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia, which sought to limit both nations’ nuclear arsenals. The treaty was later renewed under the Biden administration and is set to expire in 2026, but Russia has since suspended its participation.
On Thursday, Trump stated that Putin now seeks peace following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. His remarks came after back-to-back calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traveled to Kyiv the same day.
In September 2024, Trump met with Zelenskyy in New York and urged Putin to end the war or face sanctions, according to a post on Truth Social dated January 22.
“Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE,” Trump wrote. “If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
It’s not clear that either Russia or China would be interested in any sort of denuclearization deal with the U.S., but for Trump, the idea is consistent with his drive to bring peace to the world’s trouble spots as he did during his first term.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
