Donald Trump has stirred controversy once again after claiming in a recent interview that Pakistan has been secretly carrying out underground nuclear tests. He also said that the United States plans to restart its own nuclear testing programme to match the activities of countries like Russia, China, and North Korea.
Speaking on CBS News’s 60 Minutes, Trump said that while the US has not conducted any nuclear tests for more than thirty years, several nations continue to do so away from international scrutiny. “We’re going to test because they test,” he stated, adding that “Pakistan’s been testing, North Korea’s been testing. They don’t announce it. They do it deep underground where no one can see it, you just feel a little tremor.”
This was the first time a sitting US president openly accused Pakistan of secretly conducting nuclear tests. Trump further alleged that Russia and China were also engaging in similar activities while maintaining secrecy. He contrasted this with the US, saying, “We’re an open society. We talk about these things. They don’t have reporters questioning them.”
Defending his plan to end the three-decade moratorium on American nuclear testing, Trump argued that Washington could not afford to be the only country holding back. “Other nations are testing, and we’re not. That makes no sense,” he said. He claimed that the US possesses “more nuclear weapons than any other country” and mentioned raising disarmament concerns directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over,” he remarked.
Trump had earlier said preparations were underway to resume testing, pointing to Russia’s recent development of advanced nuclear systems, including the Poseidon underwater drone. “Others are testing all the time,” he said. “We have more weapons than anyone else, but we’re not testing. That needs to change.” When asked whether this move might increase global instability, Trump replied confidently, “I think we have things under control.”
The US last conducted a full underground nuclear test in 1992 and has since relied on computer simulations to ensure the reliability of its arsenal.
In the same interview, Trump also repeated his earlier claim that he helped avert a potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan earlier in the year. According to him, both nations were on the brink of war, but his intervention through trade and tariffs forced them to back down. “They were about to go to war,” he said. “I told them that if they didn’t come to an agreement, they wouldn’t be doing business with the United States. They worked it out, and the war stopped.”
Trump was referring to tensions that followed India’s Operation Sindoor, which targeted several terrorist camps across Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir in retaliation for a deadly attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 civilians.
He claimed that his “tariff diplomacy” was the key factor
