In a Truth Social post on Wednesday night, Donald Trump announced that he’s bringing back nuclear weapons tests after the U.S. ended the practice 33 years ago. As Trump put it, “because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”
The last U.S. nuclear test was on September 23, 1992, around the same time the creation of new material for making nuclear warheads was paused, and the testing program was replaced with a program called “Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship.” Even when China detonated an H-bomb in 1994, the U.S. held firm, and did not resume tests, an achievement for the post-Cold War arms control process.
Trump also made the puzzling claim on Truth Social that he accomplished a nuclear build-out at some point during his first Administration that gave the U.S. more nuclear weapons than Russia, the country commonly understood to have the largest nuclear arsenal.
“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” the president wrote, adding that this “was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office.”
Trump continued an undertaking begun by President Barack Obama in 2014, aimed at strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He also did state that he wanted to massively increase the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons. If it’s somehow true that the U.S. arsenal is now bigger than Russia’s, Trump succeeded wildly at this, but apparently in secret.
