President Donald Trump said “denuclearization” will be on the agenda when he meets with his Russian and Chinese counterparts next week.
Discussing his plans for the APEC leaders’ summit in China next week, Trump said, “One of the meetings, I think, will be with President [Vladimir] Putin and President Xi [Jinping], and that’ll be interesting. We’re talking a lot of things, including denuclearization, but we’ll be talking a lot of things. We’re trying to end the war in Iran.”
Trump previously expressed interest in holding trilateral nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China. However, Beijing has rejected taking part in a trilateral nuclear arms control agreement as Washington and Moscow have significantly larger nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Nuclear arms control is at a historic low point. Over the past two decades, the most important bilateral arms control agreements between the US and Russia have been ripped up or set aside, including the New START Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the Open Skies pact.
The New START Treaty expired earlier this year without Moscow and Washington signing an extension. In February, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw said that there was no informal agreement between the US and Russia to maintain the limits on nuclear weapons imposed by the New START Treaty.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stated that Moscow will only abide by the limits in the New START Treaty unless Washington does first. “We proceed from the understanding that the moratorium announced by President Putin remains in force on our side, but only as long as the United States does not exceed the above limits.” Lavrov added, “We will act responsibly and in a balanced manner based on daily analysis of US military policy and the overall strategic environment.”
Additionally, Trump has threatened other international pacts regulating nuclear weapons. He has floated the idea of the US resuming nuclear weapons testing, which would undermine the international norm against testing nuclear weapons.
The war against Iran has also tested the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Tehran is a signatory to the NPT and has never attempted to develop a nuclear weapon. Still, the US and Israel have attacked Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. Some analysts have argued that the attacks will push Iran out of the NPT and to develop nuclear weapons.
