News Brief
Trump Says US Must Test Nukes As Pakistan, Russia Are Conducting Trials
US President Donald Trump (File Photo)
US President Donald Trump said the United States needs to resume nuclear testing as other nations, including Pakistan, Russia, China, and North Korea, are conducting their own tests, reported NDTV.
Trump told CBS News, "Russia's testing and China's testing, but they don't talk about it. We're an open society. We're different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it because otherwise you people are going to report. They don't have reporters that are going to be writing about it."
He added, "We're going to test because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea's been testing. Pakistan's been testing."
Trump noted that the US does not "necessarily know" the locations of these "powerful" nations’ nuclear tests but insisted, "They-- they test way under-- underground where people don't know exactly what's happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don't test. We have to test."
Responding to questions about detonating nuclear weapons for the first time in over 30 years, Trump said, "You have to see how they work. The reason I'm saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test. And I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test."
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified that planned tests will not involve nuclear explosions. He explained, "I think the tests we're talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions."
Wright added that the tests will evaluate all components of new nuclear systems to ensure reliability and improved performance over previous weapons.
