ACA Welcomes Trump’s Acknowledgement of the “Tremendous” Cost and Dangers of Nuclear Weapons and Interest in “Denuclearization” with Russia and China
“We welcome President Trump’s interest in negotiating a deal to limit and reduce the massive nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
For Immediate Release: January 24, 2025
Media Contacts: Daryl Kimball, executive director (202-463-8270 x107); Xiaodon Liang, senior policy analyst (202-463-8270 x113)
(Washington, D.C.)— The Arms Control Association welcomes President Donald J. Trump’s comments yesterday at the Davos World Economic Forum on the potential for nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China.
In response to a question about U.S.-China relations, President Trump said: “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about today, because you don’t want to hear it.”
“So, we want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible,” he said, regarding the potential for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We welcome President Trump’s interest in negotiating a deal to limit and reduce the massive nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, which could head off a costly and dangerous unconstrained nuclear arms race,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“However, hope alone is not an effective nuclear arms reduction strategy,” Kimball said. “To start, the United States and Russia could reach a simple, informal deal to maintain the existing caps on their strategic arsenals as long as the other side agrees to do so,” he added.
“In order to succeed on ‘denuclearization,’ Trump will need a more practical and effective approach than he attempted in his first term with Russia, and he will need a more realistic plan for engaging China in bilateral talks that could lead to limits on nuclear weapons and long-range conventional systems of concern to each side,” Kimball said.
In 2020, Trump tried and failed to launch three-way talks involving the United States, Russia, and China. Trump then refused to agree to a simple extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, leaving it for former President Joe Biden to do so in his first days in office in 2021.
In response to Trump's remarks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said this morning that Russia wants to resume talks “as soon as possible.”
“Negotiating any new nuclear arms control agreement with the Kremlin would be difficult to hammer out and a new comprehensive framework deal could require sustained talks over many months, if not years, to achieve,” noted Kimball.
“And time is of the essence because the last remaining U.S.-Russian agreement limiting their long-range nuclear arsenals, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), will expire in just over a year, on February 5, 2026,” he said.
“We suggest, as a practical first step, that Trump propose a straightforward, informal deal with President Putin pledging each side not to exceed the current limits set by New START on their strategic nuclear arsenals as long as the other does the same,” Kimball said.
“Such a deal would reduce tensions, forestall a costly arms race that no one can win, and buy time for talks on a broader framework deal to reduce strategic, intermediate, and shorter-range nuclear weapons and the systems that carry them,” he said.
“In the absence of a new arrangement to limit these deadly weapons, the United States and Russia could potentially substantially increase the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads above the 1,550 each permitted under the treaty by uploading additional warheads on existing land- and sea-based ballistic missiles,” Kimball warned. “Any U.S. and Russian buildup would very likely accelerate China’s nuclear buildup and increase global nuclear risk.”
Trump’s statement in support of nuclear reductions are notable for other reasons. As former U.S. assistant secretary of state and ACA’s Board Chair Tom Countryman wrote in December: “Within the United States, the political impulse of many Republican national security leaders remains to expand rather than constrain the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Actors who are likely to have influence in the new administration already are pushing for new weapon types, a much larger nuclear weapons budget, and perhaps even the resumption of nuclear explosive testing.”
“Yet, there is no serious analysis suggesting that either side would thus enhance deterrence of the other or improve its own national security,” Countryman wrote.
“A deal that would keep Russian and U.S. strategic nuclear arsenals at or below current levels would also give Trump new diplomatic leverage to curb the buildup of China’s arsenal, which is now estimated to total 600 nuclear warheads, and includes those assigned to around 400 long-range missiles,” Kimball suggested.
“While Russia and the United States agree to cap their strategic deployed nuclear arsenals and work to negotiate a new nuclear arms reduction framework, Trump, along with other global leaders, could press his counterparts in China, France, and the United Kingdom to freeze the overall size of their nuclear arsenals and negotiate a ban on fissile material production for weapons,” Kimball proposed.
“Halting the cycle of spiraling nuclear tensions is in every nation’s interest and is every nation’s obligation,” Kimball said. Under Article VI of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Russia and the United States, along with China, France, and the United Kingdom, are legally obligated to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”
“We urge President Trump to rise to the occasion and follow through with meaningful nuclear arms control and disarmament diplomacy with Russia, and separately with China,” Kimball said.