Nuclear Weapons Testing To Resume In The USA After 30 Years

The US military has received instructions from President Donald Trump to resume testing US nuclear weapons in order to keep pace with other countries such as Russia and China.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” he wrote on social media just before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

According to President Trump, the US has more nuclear weapons than any other country, with Russia second and China a “distant third”. It has not conducted nuclear weapons testing since 1992.

It comes just days after Trump denounced Russia for testing a nuclear-powered missile, which reportedly has an unlimited range. 

On Wednesday, Trump’s post acknowledged the “tremendous destructive power” of nuclear weapons, but said he had “no choice” but to update and renovate the US arsenal during his first term in office.

He also said that China’s nuclear programme “will be even within 5 years”.

Details on how the tests would be conducted were not included in Trump’s post, but he wrote that the “process will begin immediately”.

It marks an apparent reversal of a long-standing US policy. The last US nuclear weapons test was in 1992, before former Republican President George HW Bush issued a moratorium as the Cold War ended.

Xi landed in South Korea for the first face-to-face meeting between the two since 2019, immediately after Trump’s post. The post appeared as he was aboard Marine One, a helicopter, en route to meet Xi at Gimhae International Airport.

On Air Force One after the two leaders’ meeting, Trump said the nuclear test sites would be determined later, but reiterated it was “appropriate” for the US to match other countries in testing.

China has roughly doubled its nuclear arsenal in the past five years and is expected to exceed 1,000 weapons by 2030, according to the US think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 

The US’s own nuclear stockpile sits at around 5,225 warheads, while Russia has approximately 5,580, the Arms Control Association reported.

Trump’s statement also comes about 100 days before the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) in February 2026—the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia.

The agreement limits each country to 1,550 warheads on deployed missiles capable of crossing continents.

The last time the US tested a nuclear bomb was 23 September 1992. The test took place at an underground facility in the western state of Nevada.

The project, code-named Divider, was the 1,054th nuclear weapons test conducted by the US, according to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which played a central role in helping develop the world’s first atomic bomb.

The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles (105km) north of Las Vegas, is still operated by the US government.

“If deemed necessary, the site could be authorised again for nuclear weapons testing,” according to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, which is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.