Donald Trump (AP)
Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his claim about “blowing up the world,” saying Washington already has “enough” nuclear weapons. Describing his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “tremendous,” Trump said that his ultimate goal is denuclearisation.”I think that denuclearization would be a great thing. We could blow up the world 150 times,” Trump said while addressing reporters at the White House.
Ranking the United States first, followed by Russia and China in nuclear capabilities, Trump said leaders like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin would now “spend their money on other things.” “We are number one, Russia’s number two, and China’s number three, way behind but they will be even in four or five years. There’s no need for this. I have spoken to President Putin and Xi about it, and everybody would like to spend all of that money on other things,” Trump said.“I want peace all over the world,” Trump added. Trump’s remarks come after he said last week that the United States would resume nuclear testing, announcing that he has directed the Pentagon to restart weapons trials.“You’ll find out very soon. But we’re going to do some testing, yeah,” Trump said at that time. “Other countries do it. If they’re going to do it, we’re going to do it. I’m not going to say here.”The announcement came less than an hour before Trump’s highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea to discuss trade. During the meeting, he initially ignored a reporter’s question about the decision but later told journalists that the news “had to do with others” when asked if it was related to Xi.“They seem to all be nuclear testing. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody,” Trump said. “We don’t do testing, and we halted it many years ago, but with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.”Earlier this week, Trump accused Russia and China of secretly conducting underground nuclear tests, claiming that “they don’t talk about it.” Defending his order for the US to resume testing, he added that such activities are carried out “way underground,” making them difficult to detect.”I think we should do something about denuclearization, which is gonna be some– and I did actually discuss that with both President Putin and President Xi. Denuclearization’s a very big thing. We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times. Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons, and China will have a lot,” Trump said.
