Before he left for Scotland yesterday, a TASS reporter asked U.S. President Donald Trump about chances of Washington and Moscow making a deal to replace the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. “That’s not an agreement you want expiring. We’re starting to work on that,” he said. “It’s a problem for the world,” he added, referring to the upcoming expiration of the treaty on Feb. 4, 2026. “When you take off nuclear restrictions, that’s a big problem.” When told that he earlier called for the U.S. and Russia to cut their nuclear weapons stockpiles, Trump said he would like to see that happen.
“President Trump is right, it is in the mutual interests of the United States, Russia, and the world to maintain the limits set by the New START agreement,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told TASS when asked about Trump’s comments. In his opinion, “given that New START will expire soon and negotiating a new treaty takes time, it is vital that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin reach an interim deal agreement to continue to respect the current strategic nuclear weapons limits until a new, more comprehensive framework deal can be achieved between the U.S. and Russia.”
“And they should direct their teams to begin talks on such a framework agreement as soon as possible,” the expert asserted. “Unless they do so, we could soon see each side increasing the size of their deployed nuclear arsenals for the first time in more than 35 years by uploading warheads on existing missiles, which is in no one’s interests,” Kimball added.
The ACA, in its “Nuclear Disarmament Monitor” posted yesterday afternoon, warns that so far there is no sign of movement towards negotiating a new disarmament agreement on the part of the Trump Administration despite Trump’s stated desire for maintaining limits on nuclear arms.
“Despite Trump’s stated desire to extend limits on U.S. and Russian forces, no plan or policy to do so has yet emerged,” the ACA reported. “Compounding the challenge, the Trump administration’s nominee for undersecretary of state for international security, Thomas DiNanno, has still not been confirmed by the Senate, more than two months after hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s new plan to reorganize and down-size the department will further hamstring any future negotiating effort.”
Not said, but certainly not unknown is that restarting nuclear talks is going to be even more complex than Kimball indicated. Trump has long stated a desire to bring China into the process, which Beijing has always rejected, while the Russian side will want to take note of the British and French nuclear forces, particularly given that London and Paris are actually increasing their readiness to use nuclear weapons against Russia.
