Trump wants Russia, China to stop making nuclear weapons, so all can cut defence spending by half

Washington: US President Donald Trump says he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that he eventually hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defence budgets in half.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and he said he hoped to gain commitments from the US adversaries to cut their own spending.

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”

Testing of a Russian ballistic missile in 2022. It was the first time Russia’s Defence Ministry announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons.Credit: AP

“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more productive,” Trump said.

The US and Russia hold massive stockpiles of weapons built since the Cold War. Trump predicted China would catch up in its capability to exact nuclear devastation “within five or six years”.

He said if the weapons were ever called to use, “that’s going to be probably oblivion”.

Trump said he would look to engage in nuclear talks with the two countries once “we straighten it all out” in the Middle East and Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on Thursday. India also has nuclear weapons.Credit: AP

“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half’. And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”

It is not clear if the other countries with nuclear weapon stockpiles – Israel, Iran, North Korea, France, Britain, Pakistan and India – would be included in such negotiations.

Trump in his first term tried and failed to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks when the US and Russia were negotiating an extension of The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty known as New START.

It caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the US and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them, is due to run out on February 5, 2026.

Russia on Monday said the outlook for extending nuclear arms control between Moscow and Washington, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, did not look promising and that the situation appeared to be deadlocked.

Moscow suspended its participation in the treaty during the Biden administration, as the US and Russia continued on massive programs to extend the lifespans of or replace their Cold War-era nuclear arsenals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping.Credit: Wires

Trump said he had reached an understanding with Putin on cutting back nuclear weapons during his first term, and China was “very open” to it, but the effort floundered once the COVID pandemic began.

Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, the US pushed China to break a longstanding resistance to nuclear arms talks to little avail.

Separately, Trump said he would like Russia to be readmitted to the G7. He said it was a mistake to expel Moscow after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.

“I’d love to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it’s not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia. It was the G8,” Trump said at the White House.

“They should be sitting at the table. I think Putin would love to be back.”

There was no immediate reaction to Trump’s comments from Canada, which is chair of the G7 this year.

He has repeatedly tried to get the group to readmit Russia but he has been rebuffed. In 2020, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ruled it out completely, saying the G7 was “a place for allies and friends”.

AP, Reuters

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.