Trump Says He Wants To Ensure U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Is ‘Top Of The Pack’

U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested he wants to strengthen the U.S. nuclear arsenal, saying the country must ensure it is “at the top of the pack” of nuclear-armed nations.

Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with Reuters on February 23, argued that the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear-weapon capacity.”

“It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack,” Trump said.

He also said that New START, a 2010 strategic-arms limitation treaty between the United States and Russia, was a “one-sided deal.”

New START stipulates that both sides must limit their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons to equal levels by February 2018 and maintain those ceilings for 10 years.

Among other limits, it restricts each side to a maximum of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads.

“Just another bad deal that the country made, whether it’s START, whether it’s the Iran [nuclear] deal,” Trump told Reuters in the interview. He said the United States is “going to start making good deals.”

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