Trump Says US in Denuclearization Talks With Russia and China
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States is holding talks with Russia and China aimed at denuclearizing the world's three largest nuclear weapons stockpiles, in comments that put arms control back at the center of American foreign policy months after the expiration of the New START treaty.
"I'd love to denuclearize if possible, but we're actually talking to Russia about that, and we're talking to China about that denuclearization," Trump told Newsmax during an interview on Thursday. Newsmax reported that Trump had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the matter.
Trump said he expects China to "catch up" with the United States in nuclear capability within the next five years, a timeline that reflects years of Pentagon warnings about Beijing's rapid warhead buildup.
Russia holds the most stored nuclear warheads, followed by the United States and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), though the United States maintains more deployed warheads than Russia. China lags behind both by a wide margin but is expanding its arsenal faster than any other nuclear power.
Trump's remarks come months after the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — New START — expired earlier this year. Signed in 2010 and extended once for five years by former Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, the treaty had been the last major bilateral arms-control agreement between Washington and Moscow. Any further limits would require a fresh executive decision.
Bringing China into the frame would be a historic shift. Beijing has never joined a bilateral or multilateral nuclear arms-limitation treaty, and past US efforts to create a three-way framework have stalled.
No details of the talks — who is attending, where they are being held, or what proposals are on the table — were disclosed in the interview. The White House did not immediately release a readout, and neither Moscow nor Beijing had publicly confirmed the discussions as of early Friday.
The comments land against a crowded global backdrop: Washington is simultaneously pressuring Iran over its nuclear program, weighing new strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, and managing the fallout from the expired US–Russia arms-control architecture. Whether this is the opening of a serious negotiation or an opening gambit remains an open question.
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