Trump Praises Putin’s Offer to Extend Nuclear Treaty
Accord capping number of long-range nuclear weapons was due to expire in February but would be extended by a year
- President Trump praised a Kremlin proposal to extend limits on long-range nuclear weapons for one year, preserving a key arms-control element.
- The New START treaty limits each side to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 land-based ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and strategic bombers that carry them.
- Critics argue the New START treaty is outdated as it excludes Russia’s shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons and China’s expanding nuclear arsenal.
President Trump on Sunday praised a Kremlin proposal to continue the limits on long-range nuclear weapons for one more year, which would preserve a main element of the last major arms-control agreement between the U.S. and Russia.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump said Sunday when asked about the Russian offer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that he was prepared to adhere to the caps in the New START agreement for an additional year after the accord expires in February.
Proponents of the deal say that keeping the weapons ceilings in place will provide a measure of stability when there are sharp tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and provide time for the U.S. and Russia to negotiate a follow-on accord.
Critics say that keeping the New START treaty, which covers U.S. and Russian strategic forces, will preclude the U.S. from expanding its arsenal to respond to China’s growing nuclear capabilities.
The question over how to limit long-range nuclear weapons has become all the more important as the arms-control framework that has regulated the military competition between Washington and Moscow has crumbled over the past decade.
The U.S. withdrew from the treaty with Russia banning intermediate-range American and Russian missiles based on land in 2019 after accusing Moscow of developing an illegal ground-launched cruise missile. Lesser arms-control agreements have also gone by the wayside
President Joe Biden extended the New START treaty for five years in one of his first major foreign-policy actions. But the treaty was buffeted by tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In 2023, the U.S. accused the Russians of violating the New START agreement by denying on-site inspections, impeding strict monitoring of the treaty. Putin responded by suspending Russia’s participation in the treaty.
Even so, the two sides were careful not to abandon the caps in nuclear forces, which limits each side to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads. It also sets a limit of 700 on the land-based ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and strategic bombers that carry them.
In his comments Sunday, Trump didn’t say if the U.S. was coupling its acceptance of the Russian idea with proposals of its own or whether it had formally responded to the Kremlin offer. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The New START treaty entered into force in 2011 and can’t be formally extended a second time. But nothing prevents the two sides from opting to observe its weapons ceilings after it expires.
The idea of prolonging the treaty has drawn criticism from some nuclear-arms experts who say the New START treaty is out of date because it doesn’t apply to Russia’s shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons or cover China’s growing nuclear arsenal.
“China, not Russia, is America’s foremost geopolitical rival, and Beijing is engaging in the most rapid nuclear weapons expansion since the 1960s,” said Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council, who was a national security adviser to the 2012 Mitt Romney and 2016 Marco Rubio presidential campaigns. “Bilateral arms control deals with Moscow alone won’t cut it. It is not the 1970s anymore.”
But other arms-control proponents said extending the New START ceilings would buy time for talks on a follow-on deal.
“Now, the Kremlin and the White House need to formalize the arrangement and immediately direct their teams to begin negotiations on a new more comprehensive agreement or agreements that address difficult issues with which the two sides have long struggled,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association.
Putin’s willingness to adhere to New START limits for another year doesn’t mean that negotiating a follow-on accord would be easy. In his comments last month, Putin also criticized the possible development of U.S. space-based antimissile defenses as a “destabilizing” action.
Trump is mounting a major program to develop space-based and other antimissile defenses, which he has dubbed “Golden Dome.”