Trump's USA Nuclear weapons of the major powers

Trump orders Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons tests

US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to immediately begin testing nuclear weapons, several media outlets report.

The US has not conducted any nuclear weapons tests in 33 years.

According to a post on Truth Social, the tests will be introduced on the “same basis” as other countries test weapons. Exactly what that means is unclear.

The US and Russia together control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, with China in a clear but distant third place. However, neither China nor Russia have tested any nuclear weapons since 1996 and 1990, respectively.

Worldwide concern after Trump’s nuclear weapons announcement

The US resuming its nuclear weapons tests will lead to a “new era of unpredictability,” says Russian MP Andrei Kartapolov, according to the Russian news agency RIA.

China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it hopes the US will not undermine global stability, but will continue to abide by international agreements not to test nuclear weapons.

Japan, which was nuclear bombed by the US in 1945, said in a short statement that it "will continue to work for a world without nuclear weapons" after Trump's announcement.

Donald Trump announced last night that he had ordered new nuclear weapons tests, without giving further details. No country except North Korea has tested nuclear weapons since 1998. 

Analysis: Trump seems confused about nuclear weapons

Donald Trump has ordered new nuclear weapons tests for the first time in 33 years, but does not seem to really know what he is talking about. This is what The Atlantic's Tom Nichols writes in an analysis.

Not least, the functionality of nuclear weapons can be tested perfectly well without carrying out explosions, he writes. And that is what happens - and the weapons work perfectly.

“No one is considering an attack on the United States with the insane assumption that the response would be a rain of duds.”

Macarena Vidal Liy writes in El País that the purpose is more likely to be to “flex their muscles in the face of their rivals.” However, she agrees that Trump’s statement is confused.

Not least, it is strange that he claims to have given the order to the Pentagon, even though it is the Energy Department that stores and manages the United States’ nuclear weapons, she writes.