The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was set to end Feb. 5 after Trump declined to take an offer from Russia to keep observing the treaty's limits for an additional year to allow time to negotiate how to move forward.
"Rather than extend 'NEW START' (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Signed in 2010 and intended to scale back leftover Cold War nuclear arsenals, New START capped the number of deployed strategic warheads the U.S. and Russia can have at 1,550 apiece and deployed launchers at 700 apiece.
Trump did not mention whether any talks had begun with Russia for a new treaty, and he has said the talks should include China — a country that is quickly growing its own military and arsenals.
Axios earlier Thursday reported that the U.S. and Russia had worked out a draft plan to continue observing New START for at least six months during talks on a follow-on agreement. The plan was reportedly crafted in meetings between U.S. and Russian officials on the sidelines of the Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi.
Democratic lawmakers and arms control advocates had urged the Trump administration to hold talks with Russia to come up with a new agreement on nuclear arsenals, but Trump last month indicated he would let the treaty expire. The lapsed deal means there will be no significant nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington for the first time in more than half a century.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), who has advocated for a new treaty, on Thursday expressed his dismay Trump was not taking Russia up on its offer to observe the agreement for another year.
"Today we have entered a terrifying new world, one with no limits on the nuclear arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers on Earth," Garamendi said in a statement. "With the expiration of New START, the United States is tearing away the last remaining guardrail preventing a catastrophic return to the unchecked nuclear buildup of the Cold War, and history has already shown us where that road leads."
Read the full report at thehill.com.
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