Pranay Vaddi, John K. Warden
President Donald Trump entered office with a series of national security-related proclamations, many of which have initiated a sharp turn in US foreign policy. But when it comes to nuclear arms control, the president has outlined a view that in many ways aligns with that of the previous administration and traditional US objectives. Speaking to reporters on February 13, President Trump expressed disquiet at the amount of money the United States, Russia, and China are spending on nuclear weapons, stating “there’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many” and “here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons,” referring to Russia and China (Miller and Price 2025). He then indicated that one of the first meetings he would like to have would be with Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to discuss nuclear arms and “cut our military budget in half.” (Miller and Price 2025). Given that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia expires in February 2026 and Russia and China are expanding their nuclear arsenals, the prompt attention by the Trump administration to strategic arms control is a welcome sign.
However, President Trump’s interest in new arms control talks may be complicated by one of his other priorities: an expanded national missile defense. On January 27, 2025, within a week of being inaugurated for his second term in office, President Trump issued an executive order entitled “The Iron Dome for America”—later renamed “Golden Dome” by Trump—complete with sweeping directives to the Defense Department to develop proposals for a comprehensive anti-missile and air defense system for the United States (The White House 2025). In May, he confirmed plans to complete the project in his second term, calling Golden Dome “an architecture for the state-of-the-art system that will deploy next generation technologies across the land, sea, and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors” (Trump 2025). Russia and China oppose the expansion of US missile defenses; each views the yet-to-be-realized technological potential of US missile interceptors as a threat to its assured second-strike capability.
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