- He lamented that the huge resources deployed in building these nuclear weapons could be channeled to productive areas that would have immense positive impact on citizens of these countries.
President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has expressed concern over the massive and aggressive military spending of China and Russia.
This is even as he disclosed that his administration’s plans to resume nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China.
Addressing newsmen on Thursday, Trump stated that his first meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi of China will focus on scaling back on nuclear weapons investments.
He said he hopes the US, under his watch, Russia and China, could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.
Trump fielded questions from journalists in the Oval Office on Thursday, where he condemned the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent.
He lamented that the huge resources deployed in building these nuclear weapons could be channeled to productive areas that would have immense positive impact on citizens of these countries.
The President said he hopes to gain commitments from China and Russia to cut their own spending.
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.
“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,” Trump said.
Trump said he sees China catching up with the US in their capability to exact nuclear devastation “within five or six years”.
He fears that peradventure these weapons were ever called to use, “that’s going to be probably oblivion”.
“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say: ‘Let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to,” he said.
During his first tenure as the President of America, Trump tried to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks but it amounted to nothing
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