President Donald Trump asserted on Sunday that nations including Russia and China have been secretly conducting underground nuclear weapons tests without public knowledge, and he indicated the United States would match those actions.
Speaking on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, Trump alleged: “Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it.” He added North Korea and Pakistan to the list of states supposedly testing their arsenals.
🇺🇸 U.S. Testing and Confusion
Trump’s announcement about the U.S. resuming testing, made on social media, has caused confusion, specifically regarding whether he meant the country’s first nuclear explosion since 1992.
When directly questioned on CBS about a plan for the U.S. to detonate a nuclear weapon for the first time in over three decades, Trump responded: “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.”
* Current Record: No nation, other than North Korea, has been confirmed to have conducted a nuclear detonation in decades. Russia and China’s last acknowledged tests were in 1990 and 1996, respectively.
* Trump’s Justification: He suggested that these nations hide their activities by testing “way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening,” adding: “You feel a little bit of a vibration.”
🇨🇳 China’s Official Denial
In response to Trump’s claims on Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, denied conducting any nuclear weapons tests.
* She maintained that China, as a “responsible nuclear-weapons state,” has consistently upheld a “self-defence nuclear strategy” and “abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear testing.”
* Mao Ning urged the U.S. to “take concrete actions to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”
🔬 U.S. Energy Secretary Clarifies
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright attempted to temper the severity of Trump’s comments, suggesting the planned U.S. activities are not nuclear detonations.
* He stated: “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions.”
* He clarified they are “non-critical explosions” designed to check the non-nuclear components of a weapon to ensure they function properly.
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