Trump declines to clarify if the U.S. will conduct tests of its nuclear weapons
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
- President Trump refused to clarify whether the U.S. will resume underground nuclear weapons testing, cryptically saying “You’ll find out very soon” without details.
- Russia warned it would resume nuclear tests if the U.S. does, potentially restarting Cold War-era tensions between the world’s largest nuclear powers.
- The U.S. has not detonated nuclear weapons since 1992, though it regularly tests the missiles that deliver them as part of arsenal maintenance.
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Trump declined to say Friday whether he plans to resume underground nuclear detonation tests, as he had seemed to suggest in a social media post this week that raised concerns the U.S. would begin testing nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades.
The president told reporters “You’ll find out very soon,” without elaborating when asked if he means to resume underground nuclear detonation tests.
Trump, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One as he headed to Florida for a weekend stay, said, “We’re going to do some testing” and “Other countries do it. If they’re going to do it, we’re going to” but then refused to offer more details.
His comments on nuclear testing have drawn confusion inside and outside the government when the president seemed to suggest in a brief post that the U.S. would resume nuclear warhead tests on an “equal basis” with Russia and China, whose last known tests were in the 1990s. Some of Trump’s comments seemed to refer to testing missiles that would deliver a warhead, rather than the warhead itself. There has been no indication that the U.S. would start detonating warheads.
The U.S. military already regularly tests its missiles that are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, but it has not detonated the weapons since 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. signed but did not ratify, has been observed since its adoption by all countries possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea being the only exception.
The Pentagon has not responded to questions. The Energy Department, which oversees the U.S. nuclear stockpile, declined to comment Friday.
Trump’s post on nuclear tests came as Russia this week announced it had tested a new atomic-powered and nuclear-capable underwater drone and a new nuclear-powered cruise missile.
Russia responded to Trump’s post by underscoring that it did not test its nuclear weapons and has abided by a global ban on nuclear testing. The Kremlin warned though, that if the U.S. resumes testing its weapons, Russia will as well — an intensification that would restart Cold War-era tensions.
Vice Adm. Richard Correll, Trump’s nominee to lead the military command in charge of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, struggled to interpret the president’s comments when he testified before senators during a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday, telling them, “I’m not reading anything into it or reading anything out of it.”
Price and Ceneta write for the Associated Press. Price reported from Washington.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
Kim, an attorney and former San Francisco supervisor, is running against State Sen. Benjamin Allen for the role of running California’s long-beleaguered Department of Insurance. In this episode she talks to Rebuilding L.A. host Kate Cagle about why she should get the job.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Modern LA earned its first smoggy nickname 450 years ago, as the “bay of smokes.” At the La Brea tar pits, we take a short walk through a long history with curator Regan Dunn, who explains how and why the first Angelenos would have set fires that filled the broad bowl of LA and foretold the curse of smog.
