{"id":111427,"date":"2025-10-31T23:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T23:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/111427\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T23:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T23:01:09","slug":"trump-declines-to-clarify-if-us-will-conduct-nuclear-weapons-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/111427\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump declines to clarify if US will conduct nuclear weapons tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump declined to say whether he plans to resume underground nuclear detonation tests, as he had seemed to suggest in a social media post this week that raised concerns the US would begin testing nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades.<\/p>\n

The president told reporters, “You\u2019ll find out very soon\u201d, without elaborating when asked if he meant to resume underground nuclear detonation tests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered few details on when asked about what nuclear testing the Pentagon would oversee. But he seemed to indicate to reporters that the intent was to test warheads when he said \u201cresuming testing\u201d would be \u201cpretty responsible”.<\/p>\n

Trump, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One as he headed to Florida for a weekend stay, said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to do some testing\u201d and \u201cOther countries do it. If they\u2019re going to do it, we\u2019re going to\u201d but then refused to offer more details.<\/p>\n

His comments on nuclear testing have drawn confusion inside and outside the government<\/a> when the president seemed to suggest in a brief post that the US would resume nuclear warhead tests on an \u201cequal basis\u201d with Russia and China, whose last known tests were in the 1990s. Some of Trump’s comments seemed to refer to testing missiles that would deliver a warhead, rather than the warhead itself. There has been no indication that the US would start detonating warheads.<\/p>\n

The US military already regularly tests its missiles that are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, but it has not detonated the weapons since 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the US signed but did not ratify, has been observed since its adoption by all countries possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea being the only exception.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon has not responded to questions. The Energy Department, which oversees the US nuclear stockpile, declined to comment Friday.<\/p>\n

Hegseth, speaking as he appeared at a meeting of defence ministers in Malaysia on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said the Pentagon would work with the Energy Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president was clear: We need to have a credible nuclear deterrent,” he said. \u201cThat is the baseline of our deterrence.\u201d He said “resuming testing is a pretty responsible \u2014 very responsible \u2014 way to do that. And I think it makes nuclear conflict less likely\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added a few moments later: \u201cIt\u2019s the right directive. We\u2019re moving out quickly.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s post on nuclear tests came as Russia this week announced it had tested a new atomic-powered and nuclear-capable underwater drone and a new nuclear-powered cruise missile.<\/p>\n

Russia responded to Trump’s post by underscoring that it did not test its nuclear weapons and has abided by a global ban on nuclear testing. The Kremlin warned, though, that if the US resumes testing its weapons, Russia will as well \u2014 an intensification that would restart Cold War-era tensions.<\/p>\n

Vice Adm Richard Correll, Trump\u2019s nominee to lead the military command in charge of the nation\u2019s nuclear arsenal, struggled to interpret the president’s comments when he testified before senators during a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday, telling them, \u201cI\u2019m not reading anything into it or reading anything out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump declined to say whether he plans to resume underground nuclear detonation tests, as he had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[65,156,111,139,64,69,437,66],"class_list":["post-111427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz","tag-tv","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}