Former U.S. President Donald Trump has alleged that Russia and China are secretly conducting underground nuclear tests — and vowed that the United States would follow suit.
In an interview aired Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Trump claimed that both nations are testing their nuclear weapons away from the public eye.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test.”
He added North Korea and Pakistan to the list of countries he believes are testing their nuclear arsenals.
The 79-year-old Republican first announced his plan on Thursday via social media, moments before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. His post, which shocked global observers, hinted that Washington could soon conduct its first nuclear detonation since 1992.
Trump’s comments came shortly after Russia said it had tested new nuclear-powered weapons — including the Burevestnik cruise missile and a nuclear-capable underwater drone.
When pressed on whether the U.S. would detonate a nuclear weapon for the first time in more than three decades, Trump responded:
“I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.”
No country other than North Korea is publicly known to have carried out nuclear detonations in recent decades. Russia and China have not officially conducted such tests since 1990 and 1996, respectively.
Defending his claim, Trump said:
“They don’t go and tell you about it. They test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening. You feel a little bit of a vibration.”
China Denies Trump’s Allegation
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry firmly rejected the accusation.
“As a responsible nuclear-weapons state, China has always upheld a self-defensive nuclear strategy and abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear testing,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said during a press briefing in Beijing.
She urged the U.S. to “take concrete actions to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and maintain global strategic stability.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Clarifies: ‘No Explosions Planned’
Meanwhile, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright sought to calm fears of a new nuclear arms race, clarifying that any upcoming tests would not involve actual nuclear detonations.
“These are system tests, not nuclear explosions,” Wright told Fox News. “They’re what we call ‘non-critical tests’ — designed to verify the weapon’s components without triggering a nuclear blast.”
The United States has been a signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) since 1996, which bans all atomic test explosions.
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