Reuters. U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday (October 30) ordered the U.S. military to immediately resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in 33 years, minutes before beginning a high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump made the surprise announcement on Truth Social while he was aboard his Marine One helicopter flying to meet Xi for a trade negotiating session in Busan, South Korea. He said he was instructing the Pentagon to test the U.S. nuclear arsenal on an "equal basis" with other nuclear powers.
Trump's decision to restart nuclear weapons testing follows a rapid expansion by China of its nuclear stockpile in recent years, and came just after Russia announced what it called a successful test of a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable cruise missile as well as a nuclear-powered torpedo.
The United States last tested a nuclear weapon in 1992.
