Warfare Pentagon told to match rivals' nuclear arms tests

Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to immediately start matching other countries in their testing of nuclear weapons, specifically citing Russia and China.

- Abené Clayton Pjotr Sauer Helen Davidson

In a post to Truth Social, Trump said: "Because of other countries' testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately."

The post came less than an hour before Trump met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea yesterday morning in an effort to come to a trade war truce.

The US last conducted a full nuclear weapons test in 1992, and China and Russia are not known to have held any such tests since the same era. Trump's reference to "on an equal basis" left it unclear what weapons testing could take place, or whether he was referring to displays of power similar to those recently conducted by Russia.