WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would like to maintain the limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments set in the 2010 New START agreement, which expires in February.
“That’s not an agreement you want expiring. We’re starting to work on that,” Trump told reporters as he exited the White House on a trip to Scotland.
It was the first time since taking office that Trump has said he wants to maintain the treaty’s limits on strategic nuclear weapons deployments when it expires on February 5.
“When you take off nuclear restrictions, that’s a big problem,” Trump said.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, is the last remaining nuclear arms reduction accord between the world’s largest nuclear powers. It restricts Russia and the U.S. to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic warheads on 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bombers.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin extended the treaty for five years in 2021 but, as written, the pact cannot be extended further. Trump opposed an extension in his first term, calling instead for a new treaty that included China, which spurned the proposal.
Trump has been an advocate for reining in nuclear weapons. He said in February that he would like to have conversations with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping about limiting their nuclear arsenals.
U.S.-Russia relations are at their lowest point in more than 60 years, in part fueled by Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine and his development of exotic new weapons systems.
With New START’s expiration, the U.S. and Russia could begin deploying more strategic warheads and each could find it harder to gauge the other’s intentions, arms control advocates warn.
(Reporting By Steve Holland and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Don Durfee and Cynthia Osterman)
