United States President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he had instructed the Department of Defense to “immediately” restart testing of US nuclear weapons.If the US resumes nuclear testing now, it would be the first time it has conducted such tests in more than 30 years.Trump claimed that China was rapidly building its nuclear stockpile, citing that as among the reasons to justify his decision, just before he began a much-anticipated summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping that yielded a deal on tariffs and rare earth metals.The US president’s decision also came days after he criticised Russia for testing a new nuclear-powered missile called the Burevestnik.What did Trump say?In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote: “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.” The Trump administration has renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War.In the post, Trump said that while the US has “more Nuclear Weapons than any other country”, China “will be even within 5 years”.Minutes later, Trump entered a meeting with China’s Xi in South Korea, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.Are US rivals China and Russia really posing a nuclear challenge to Washington?It’s unclear why Trump suggested that China could catch up with the US’s arsenal of nuclear warheads in five years.It is true that while the US and Russia have been slowly retiring some of their nuclear weapon …
