Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump was asked about reports that his counterparts, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China, proposed a three-way meeting with Trump to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine at November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China.
November 2026
By Daryl G. Kimball
Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump was asked about reports that his counterparts, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China, proposed a three-way meeting with Trump to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine at November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China.
Trump responded that the talks were “not so much on Ukraine because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.… We would have it to talk about weapons and denuclearization.”
The statement highlights Trump’s inexcusable enabling behavior toward Putin and his five-year-long illegal assault on the U.S. democratic ally, Ukraine. It shows Trump’s affinity for authoritarians and signals to Putin that he can press on with his vicious missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, infrastructure, and civilians; continue using chemical weapons and cluster munitions on the conflict’s front lines; and try to erase Ukraine as a sovereign state.
Trump’s conduct toward Putin ignores his threats of nuclear weapons use against non-nuclear states that might threaten Russia, undermines European trust in U.S. intentions, and encourages the Kremlin to continue hybrid attacks against NATO members to probe for weaknesses.
Talks on ending the war on Ukraine must involve Ukraine and will only succeed with a tougher U.S. approach to Russia. The United States should advocate for an outcome that ends Russia’s attacks, secures its withdrawal from Ukrainian territory, and creates the opportunity for durable new security arrangements that reduce Russia-NATO tensions.
Meanwhile, denuclearization talks with Russia and China are overdue. As despicable as Putin is, it is in the U.S. and European interest that U.S., Chinese, and Russian diplomats, based on serious preparation and realistic proposals, negotiate, bilaterally or multilaterally, meaningful restraints to halt and reverse the costly, arms race that the states are pursuing in the name of deterring each other’s aggressive and destabilizing behavior.
Unfortunately, the hostile Russian behavior against Ukraine that Trump encourages is the same behavior that his defense establishment cites as the basis for augmenting U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to fight and “prevail” in a future war with Russia in Europe and to counter potential Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
The Pentagon’s latest nuclear strategy review calls for more “credible” options to threaten to use or use tactical nuclear weapons in a regional war. It is an update of the 2018 and 2022 nuclear posture reviews, which declare that Washington might use nuclear weapons first in extreme circumstances in response to non-nuclear strategic attacks against itself or allies and partners.
In response, the National Nuclear Security Administration is moving to design and produce new nuclear weapons faster. Earlier this year, it launched a unified “rapid and advanced capabilities” program for “assessing, designing, prototyping, and demonstrating advanced systems.” The administration has proposed a program budget of $499 million in fiscal year 2027. A separate $100 million “futures program” would develop three new weapons designs, including a modern bunker-buster bomb.
The United States already has at least two types of tactical nuclear weapons in the stockpile: the B61-12 gravity bomb and the W76-2 low-yield warhead for the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile. The Navy is also acquiring a new nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile that may be available by the end of the decade.
Nevertheless, as Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yeaw declared in a speech Oct. 19, “as we modernize our nuclear triad, we will develop additional options to support deterrence and escalation management …[to] ensure the president has expanded decisions space with credible options that are not simply suicide or surrender.” Translation: The United States will be prepared to use nuclear weapons to prevail or try to end a conflict.
The reality is that if nuclear weapons were used in a conflict involving another nuclear-armed adversary, there is no guarantee it will not result in all-out global thermonuclear war.
As McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, and former Arms Control Association Board Members Robert S. McNamara, and Gerard C. Smith wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1982, “The time has come for careful study of the ways and means of moving to a new Alliance policy and doctrine: that nuclear weapons will not be used unless an aggressor should use them first.”
They warned: “It is time to recognize that no one has ever succeeded in advancing any persuasive reason to believe that any use of nuclear weapons, even on the smallest scale, could reliably be expected to remain limited.”
What was true then is also true today: It is in the U.S. and global interest for nuclear-armed states to rule out the first use of nuclear weapons in any conflict, severely minimize their nuclear arsenals, and negotiate verifiable agreements that move us toward a world without nuclear weapons.
After six years in office, however, Trump is failing on “denuclearization” diplomacy. Instead, he is “renuclearizing.” Congress can help effect a course correction by canceling the Trump administration’s dangerous plan for new tactical nuclear weapons and pressing Trump to engage in serious, balanced, and sustained talks on strategic and sub-strategic nuclear arms control with Russia and China.
By Daryl G. Kimball in Arms Control Today
Last month, following his meeting with President Xi Jinping of China, President Donald Trump said he had “advocated for trilateral arms control negotiations between the United States, Russia, and China.” Last week, in an interview with Newsmax Trump claimed he is holding talks with Russia and China on “denuclearization.”
On Friday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said “It is neither fair, reasonable nor realistic to ask China to join the so-called trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage.”
Today, in response to reports that Trump is open to a meeting proposed by Putin and Xi to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine at the upcoming APEC summit, Trump said the talks were “not so much on Ukraine because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, they haven’t been doing much, and the same with China…. We would have it to talk about weapons and denuclearization.”
Talks on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine must involve Ukraine. The United States should advocate and support an outcome that ends Russia’s attack and secures Russia’s withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.
At the same time, it is appropriate and necessary that the United States should discuss with China and Russia bilaterally or multilaterally meaningful restraints that can halt and reverse the costly, three-way arms race that each of the three states are pursuing.
All five of the nuclear-armed states who are party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty are legally obligated to engage in good faith negotiations to end the arms race and on nuclear disarmament, but there has been no progress on nuclear disarmament diplomacy for more than a decade.
In 2013, former President Barack Obama proposed talks with Russia on a further one-third reduction in U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear stockpiles but Putin rejected the offer. Since then, the United States and Russia have failed to negotiate a successor to the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which limited them no more than 1,550 deployed warheads each. In recent years, China increased the size of its smaller but still deadly arsenal to ensure it retains a survivable nuclear retaliatory force.
In his first term Trump proposed and failed to get “trilateral” arms control talks underway and refused to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, leaving it to Biden and Putin to do so in 2021. Late last year, as New START was due to expire again, Russia proposed, and Trump ignored, that the U.S. and Russia agree not to increase their strategic nuclear weapons deployments while they negotiate a new framework agreement. Now, there are no agreed limits on the arsenals of the world’s major nuclear-armed states.
If Trump is serious and wants to succeed on “denuclearization,” it will take more than statements and wishful thinking. He and his team will need to develop more realistic, balanced, and pragmatic proposals. To date, they have not done so. He and the other leaders must also recognize that one meeting on the margins of the APEC summit may, at best, just be the start of a process that leads to sustained, formal bilateral or multilateral negotiations.
As the Reagan-Gorbachev nuclear summit in Reykjavik forty years ago shows, progress requires serious preparation, plus bold and balanced win-win proposals that are verifiable and that advance the interests of all sides.
To jump-start serious disarmament diplomacy, all five NPT nuclear-armed states could agree to indefinitely freeze deployment of additional strategic launchers while the United States and Russia renew talks on further reductions of their massive strategic and non-strategic weapons stockpiles. As of now, Russia and the United States each have fewer than 800 total strategic launchers; China has an estimated 550; and France and the United Kingdom have a combined total of about 96.
A freeze at these levels would not affect any country’s ability to deter nuclear attack (and inflict catastrophic harm), could be confidently verified through national means of intelligence, would reduce tensions, and would create a better environment for bilateral or multilateral nuclear arms reduction talks.
If China is not prepared to engage in multilateral talks, Trump should pursue bilateral talks with Russia and continue to try to engage bilaterally with China. Earlier this month, Putin said the Kremlin is ready to resume a nuclear arms control dialogue with the White House.
Trump, Xi, and Putin could also reaffirm their commitments to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and agree on new voluntary technical measures to ensure no state is conducting clandestine low-yield nuclear explosions. They could also begin negotiations on a binding declaration on maintaining effective human control over nuclear weapons and operational best practices to mitigate the risks of AI integration in nuclear and military systems.
