WASHINGTON ( WNAM MONITORING0: Democratic US senators criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday following reports that he directed the Pentagon to prepare for the resumption of nuclear weapons testing.
“This is a very dangerous and reckless move by the president,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
Her remarks came after Trump announced he instructed the Pentagon to “immediately” begin nuclear weapons tests “because of other countries’ testing programs.”
“Resuming nuclear tests would end a more than 30-year moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons for the United States, and we would be doing so unilaterally,” Shaheen said.
Neither Russia nor China has tested nuclear weapons since 1992, she added.
“The harmful toll that nuclear testing has wrought on Americans and our environment is the product of a chapter of history that should remain in the past,” Shaheen stressed.
At a Senate hearing Thursday, Sen. Jacky Rosen, whose state of Nevada was the site of hundreds of Cold War-era nuclear tests, delivered an emotional condemnation of the move, vowing to fight any attempt to resume explosive testing.
“President Trump last night took the reckless, irresponsible and dangerous step to declare that we will resume explosive nuclear testing despite no evidence supporting the need to do so,” Rosen said.
“If this resumption happens, the amount of radiation exposure and destruction would be felt across the country and around the world. Make no mistake, this would be devastating and catastrophic. So, I’m going to be crystal clear. I will not let this happen.”
‘Testing the warhead itself is something we do not need to do’
Sen. Mark Kelly voiced concern to reporters on the Capitol, arguing that renewed testing would undermine US leadership and global stability.
“It’s concerning that the president thinks that we need to resume the testing of nuclear warheads, something we haven’t done in over three decades,” Kelly said, adding the US does not need to test its nuclear weapons.
“Testing the warhead itself is something we do not need to do, and when the president says something like that, if we were to test a nuclear warhead, and then the Chinese start doing it — just helps the Chinese. It doesn’t help us,” he added.
No nuclear power, aside from North Korea, which last conducted a test in 2017, has carried out an explosive nuclear test in more than a quarter-century.
Post-Soviet Russia has never conducted such a test; the Soviet Union’s final test took place in 1990; the US’ last test was in 1992. And China’s most recent test occurred in 1996.
A UN official said Thursday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly said current nuclear risks are already alarmingly high, and urged countries to avoid all actions that could lead to miscalculation or escalation with “catastrophic consequences.”
