US President Donald Trump said on Thursday a new nuclear arms treaty should replace New START, calling the expiring pact “badly negotiated” and asserting it “is being grossly violated.” He posted on Truth Social that “we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future.”
Trump’s comments came hours after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which for more than a decade limited deployed strategic nuclear forces between the United States and Russia, expired. The 2010 agreement, negotiated under then-US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, capped each side at 1,550 deployed warheads on up to 700 delivery systems — missiles, aircraft and submarines — and allowed a single five-year extension that Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden agreed to in 2021.
Putin had proposed extending New START for another year, and Trump’s post was a direct response to that suggestion. The president did not say which countries, beyond the United States and Russia, should be party to a new accord. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said talks with Russia would continue.
Trump has previously advocated including China in any future arms-reduction framework because of its rapidly growing nuclear arsenal. China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday it would not join such a treaty.
The Kremlin expressed regret over the treaty’s expiration. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would engage in dialogue if the United States replied constructively to Putin’s extension proposal and added that Moscow would take a “responsible, thorough approach to stability when it comes to nuclear weapons,” guided primarily by its national interests.
The expiration of New START coincided with a resumption of high-level military-to-military contacts between the United States and Russia. Those exchanges restarted after a meeting between senior US and Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, held on the margins of discussions about the war in Ukraine. Military-to-military lines of communication had been suspended in 2021, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
US European Command said maintaining military dialogue is an important element of global stability and peace, helping provide transparency and avenues for de-escalation.
Edited by: Sean Sinico