Trump tweets desire for more nuclear weapons
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DONALD Trump has re-opened the debate over nuclear proliferation, calling for the United States to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” until the rest of the world “comes to its senses” regarding nuclear weapons.
The president-elect’s comments on Twitter on Thursday came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin said strengthening his country’s nuclear capabilities should be a chief military objective in the coming year.
Asked to clarify his comments, MSNBC said yesterday that Trump had replied: “Let it be an arms race,” and added that the United States would win it.
The network’s Mika Brzezinski, who spoke with Trump on the phone, said he told her: “We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”
It was not clear what prompted Thursday’s tweet by the Republican who takes office on January 20.
In his year-end news conference in Moscow yesterday, Putin said Trump’s comment was not out of line and that he did not consider the United States to be a potential aggressor.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said in several television interviews yesterday that there would not be an arms race because the president-elect would ensure that other countries trying to step up their nuclear capabilities, such as Russia and China, would decide not to do so.
“He’s going to ensure that other countries get the message that he’s not going to sit back and allow that,” Spicer, who was named this week as White House spokesman for the president-elect, told NBC. “And what’s going to happen is they will come to their senses, and we will all be just fine.”
On Thursday, spokesman Jason Miller said Trump had been referring to the threat of nuclear proliferation “particularly to and among terrorist organizations and unstable and rogue regimes.” The president-elect sees modernizing the nation’s deterrent capability “as a vital way to pursue peace through strength.”
If Trump were to seek an expansion of the nuclear stockpiles, it would mark a sharp shift in US national security policy. President Barack Obama made nuclear nonproliferation a centerpiece of his agenda, calling in 2009 for the US to lead efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons — a goal he acknowledged would not be accomplished easily.
Still, the US has been moving forward on plans to upgrade its aging nuclear arsenal. Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the Pentagon planned to spend US$108 billion over the next five years on its nuclear force.
The US and Russia hold the vast majority of the world’s nuclear weapons. In 2010, the two countries signed the New START treaty capping the number of nuclear warheads and missile launchers each country can possess. The agreement is in effect until 2021 and can be extended for another five years.
The state of the US nuclear arsenal was rarely addressed during the presidential campaign. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, repeatedly cast the Republican as too erratic and unpredictable to control the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
Yesterday, shares of uranium producers and a nuclear fuel technology company jumped with Uranium Resources Inc, Uranium Energy Corp, Cameco Corp and Lightbridge Corp all trading higher.
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