‘They test underground where no one knows’: Trump accuses Russia, China of secret nuclear testing

US President Donald Trump on Monday (Nov 2) claimed that Russia and China were secretly conducting underground nuclear tests. Defending his surprise decision to resume nuclear testing after more than three decades, the US president said that while the United States has been holding back, other nations have been carrying out nuclear testing. "Russia's testing, and China's testing, but they don’t talk about it," Trump claimed during an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday. "They test way under-- underground where people don't know exactly what's happening with the test," he alleged. The comments came days after Trump ordered the US military to prepare for new nuclear weapons tests, the first since 1992. He argued that the move was necessary to ensure America’s arsenal remains reliable and to match what he described as covert testing by rival powers.

Trump's defence for resuming nuclear tests in the US

The POTUS doubled down on his decision to restart nuclear testing and said that America has "ore nuclear weapons than any other country. Russia's second. China's a very distant third," but that these nations will "be even in five years".

"You know, they're makin' 'em rapidly," he insisted, adding that "denuclearisation's a very big thing," even though "We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times." He added, "Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons, and China will have a lot. They have some. They have quite a bit".

When pressed on why the United States needed to resume testing, Trump said, "you have to see how they work...North Korea's testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test, and I wanna be-- I don't wanna be the only country that doesn't test." He pointed to recent reports of Russian and North Korean missile tests as proof that rivals are expanding their nuclear programs without transparency. "they don't have reporters that gonna be writing about it," he said. "We do. No, we're gonna test, because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea's been testing. Pakistan's been testing."

The last time US tested nuclear weapons

The last American nuclear test took place in September 1992 under Operation Julin, a series of seven underground explosions conducted before Washington signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions for both civilian and military purposes, has been signed by 187 countries and ratified by 178. However, the United States — while a signatory — never ratified the CTBT, leaving room for future administrations to legally resume testing.