Trump threats to New START could imperil nuclear modernization programs: U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments Thursday about the New START treaty could imperil the political consensus in Washington on modernizing the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal.
In a Thursday interview with Reuters, Trump called the New START treaty a “"a one-sided deal” and a “bad deal,” and pledged that “if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”
Signed in 2010, the New START treaty limits both the U.S. and Russia agreed to limit their deployed forces to 1,550 warheads over 700 delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and bombers, by 2018.
The deal has been praised by both the non-proliferation community and former Pentagon officials as one that increases global security, but has drawn the ire of Trump previously, with media outlets reporting that he railed against the deal during his first call with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
