President Donald Trump has an uncanny flair for turning irony into policy. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving 2025 - while most Americans were busy with grocery bills, travel plans, and rising food prices - he chose to drop a political bombshell. On October 31, 2025, he announced on 'Truth Social' that he had instructed the newly rebranded "Department of War to start testing nuclear weapons immediately." Days later, in an interview with Norah O'Donnell on CBS's 60 Minutes, he defended the move as a step toward "denuclearization" - a curious kind of peace plan that seemed more like walking the world straight to the edge of a cliff.
In the interview with Norah O'Donnell, Trump set out his nuclear worldview in blunt terms. "We have more nuclear weapons than any other country," he boasted, adding, "We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times." However, in the same breath he said he wanted to "do something about denuclearization," and claimed to have discussed this with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. When asked why the United States needed to resume nuclear testing after more than three decades, his answer was simple: "Because you have to see how they work." He then justified testing by insisting that "Russia's testing, and China's testing 'em too -- you just don't know about it... we're gonna test, because they test and others test. And certainly, North Korea's been testing. Pakistan's been testing."
The problem is that almost none of this is true. International monitoring systems have not detected any full-scale nuclear explosions by Russia or China in recent years. The only country that has openly broken the nuclear test moratorium since the 1990s is North Korea. The head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) warned that any explosive test "would be harmful to peace and security" and would undermine the global non-proliferation effort. But facts and verification do not figure much in Trump's argument. His logic is closer to a schoolyard contest - if others are "probably" doing it, America must be seen doing it bigger and louder.
Trump's move sits on top of a long history that the 60 Minutes exchange almost ignored. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which stopped tests in the atmosphere, space, and underwater. In 1992, after more than 2,000 nuclear detonations worldwide (over half of them carried out by the United States) President George H. W. Bush declared a unilateral moratorium on explosive tests.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), adopted in 1996, goes further: it bans all nuclear explosions, for any purpose, in every environment. It has not yet entered into force, because the United States and several other key states have not ratified it, but it has created a strong global norm. The CTBTO has built a worldwide verification network that can pick up even small underground tests. A UN legal commentary is blunt - the CTBT is "the single most important element" of how nuclear-weapon states are expected to meet their disarmament obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Trump's announcement cuts directly across this delicate structure. As André Damon notes, it makes the United States the only country to openly permit nuclear testing, shattering the sense that the great powers had at least agreed on one minimal rule - no more mushroom clouds. He calls it "a massively escalatory act," one that puts the world back on what he describes as a "nuclear hair trigger."
Trump presents the decision as a personal correction to the weakness of past presidents. He claims that "the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country" and that he "completed" a "complete update and renovation of existing weapons" during his first term. In both cases, experts have had to step in and clean up the record.
Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists calls Trump's claims "unclear, all over the map, and wrong." In reality, Russia still has more nuclear warheads than the United States, though both arsenals are huge. And the massive U.S. modernization programme - new missiles, submarines, bombers, warheads, and support infrastructure - was launched under Barack Obama, continued under Trump's first term, carried on under Joe Biden, and will run for at least another two decades. Its total cost is expected to exceed $1 trillion.
A long New York Times feature in 2024 exposed this rearmament drive as a plan to "make America nuclear again," with "billion-dollar programs moving under the radar." In December 2024, Congress passed an $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act - the largest military budget in history - with record funding for nuclear forces. This is the background against which Trump now says he has told the "Department of War" to start testing "on an equal basis" with others. The shift is not a sudden personal whim. It is the political unveiling of a buildup that has enjoyed bipartisan support for years.
What Trump adds is the open threat that the United States will smash through the test ban norm if it feels like it. As Dan Drollette reports, Kristensen warns that if "testing" means explosive nuclear tests, it would be reckless, slow, and costly. He estimates that even a simple test would take 6-10 months to prepare, a fully instrumented one 2-3 years, and a test for a new warhead about 5 years, and that Congress would have to approve fresh money because the United States does not have an active test program today. In other words, Trump is not describing a technical necessity. He is pushing a political signal, a threat to reopen the Pandora's box of nuclear explosions.
The NPT rests on a bargain. Non-nuclear states promise not to build the bomb, accept safeguards, and allow inspections. Nuclear-weapon states promise, in Article VI, to negotiate "in good faith" toward disarmament and the end of the arms race. For many non-nuclear countries, the CTBT is the main sign that this promise has any meaning. UN lawyers even say the test ban treaty is the barometer by which they judge whether the NPT is still a fair deal.
If Washington now resumes testing, that barometer breaks. The message to the rest of the world is clear - permanent nuclear powers can modernize, expand, and even test their arsenals and everyone else must sit silently and obey. The CTBTO's head has warned that any explosive test would "undermine international peace and security," not just because of fallout, but because it would destroy confidence in the non-proliferation regime.
This comes at a time when the NPT is already under extreme stress. Iran, a party to the treaty since 1970, has long insisted its programme is peaceful, but the IAEA has now found it in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations and unable to explain undeclared nuclear material at several sites. Tehran has reacted by expanding enrichment, passing a law to limit cooperation with inspectors, and even threatening to rethink its treaty commitments.
At the same time, the only state in the Middle East that actually has nuclear weapons - Israel - is not a party to the NPT at all. Israel is widely believed to hold around 90 nuclear warheads, maintains a policy of "nuclear opacity," and has never opened its full programme to inspection. But, in June 2025, Israel launched large-scale strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, and the United States followed with its own attacks, all justified in the name of enforcing non-proliferation norms.
The picture is hard to neglect. Iran, which is still formally inside the NPT and under safeguards, is bombed and sanctioned for suspected weapons ambitions. Israel, which sits outside the treaty with an actual nuclear arsenal, faces no such punishment. The United States, which once sold itself as the guardian of the NPT, is now threatening to restart nuclear tests while demanding that others accept stricter rules and deeper inspections. If that is not a recipe for resentment and distrust, what is?
The strategic impact of Trump's announcement will not stop at the Nevada desert. Russia has already withdrawn its ratification of the CTBT, arguing that it cannot be expected to show restraint when the United States never ratified the treaty in the first place. Moscow is testing exotic delivery systems like the Poseidon underwater drone and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, though so far without nuclear payloads. If Washington now moves toward actual explosive tests, the pressure on Russia to follow will grow.
China, which is modernizing and expanding its smaller arsenal, will view U.S. tests as a direct signal that the old duopoly of Washington and Moscow intends to lock in its advantage by constant technical upgrades. India and Pakistan, both outside the NPT and already in a nuclear arms race, would face a strong incentive to resume their own tests if they believe others are gaining new capabilities. North Korea would see its long-standing defiance of the test moratorium vindicated. Kristensen warns that, unlike the United States, these states "would have much to gain by restarting testing."
In the Middle East, the signal is even more toxic. The region has lived for decades under the unspoken reality of Israel's undeclared arsenal. Efforts to create a WMD-free zone in the Middle East have been blocked repeatedly, including with U.S. support. Now, after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, Washington is moving to tear up the global taboo on tests. For states like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and others who feel exposed, the lesson is simple: power belongs to those who keep their options open and ignore the rules when convenient.
Behind the strategic games and acronyms are real people whose lives were ruined by past tests. Before the moratoriums, nuclear explosions turned parts of the American West and the South Pacific into sacrifice zones. Communities downwind from test sites suffered higher rates of cancer and other illnesses. In the Marshall Islands, whole atolls were made uninhabitable by U.S. tests, and displaced people still live with contamination and trauma.
Nuclear testing is not a clean laboratory exercise. It leaves scars that last for generations. That is one reason why researchers like Walter Pincus have described the "horrors of nuclear testing," and why analysts such as Pavel Podvig argue that preserving the test ban is vital, even as states keep their sites technically ready. Steven Pifer has gone further and argued that full U.S. ratification of the CTBT would actually lock in an American advantage, because it would freeze others at a lower level of design experience while the United States relies on advanced simulations and sub-critical experiments.
In other words, the United States does not need to explode nuclear devices to keep its deterrent credible. Testing again would not be about safety. It would be about symbolism and dominance.
Trump's language makes that representation clear. He talks of "denuclearization," but in practice defends a vast modernization programme, boasts of being able to "blow up the world 150 times," and now threatens to restart tests because other powers supposedly do so in secret. He insists that "we're an open society" and that Russia and China "don't talk about it" because they lack independent media. The irony is that global monitoring and open sources undercut his claims, not theirs.
The deeper hypocrisy is structural, not personal. The five original nuclear-weapon states - United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom - promised under the NPT to move toward disarmament. Instead, they have all embarked on long-term modernization, new delivery systems, and revised doctrines. Israel sits outside the regime with an undeclared arsenal. India and Pakistan remain unconstrained by NPT rules. Iran is punished for suspected ambitions, even as countries with real bombs are praised as "responsible stewards."
Trump's decision to resume testing, even if it begins with non-explosive "system checks," is a political message to the world. The United States reserves the right to break the only nuclear taboo that it has not already broken. It did, after all, remain the only state ever to use nuclear weapons in war, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And now, alongside Israel, it has attacked Iran for alleged moves toward a weapon, while itself tearing at the legal and moral fabric of the non-proliferation order.
The alternative is fairly clear. The United States could confirm that it will not conduct explosive nuclear tests, ratify the CTBT, and challenge Russia and China to do the same. It could stop pretending that modernization and disarmament are the same thing. It could stop shielding Israel's arsenal from scrutiny while bombing and sanctioning an NPT member state. It could treat Article VI of the NPT as a real obligation rather than a vague aspiration.
Instead, Trump has chosen a different line - "start testing our nuclear weapons" and dare others to respond. That may play well in a domestic political arena that rewards swagger. But in the wider world, it looks like what it is - a nuclear-armed state, already richer and more powerful than most of its rivals, deciding that even the thinnest barriers are too much of a constraint.
For the NPT and the broader non-proliferation regime, this is not a technical adjustment. It is a test of credibility. If the United States goes ahead with any form of explosive testing, it will not just be blowing up old devices in the desert. It will be blowing a hole in the idea that the rules of the nuclear game apply to everyone, rather than only to those without the bomb.