President Donald Trump’s Nuclear Weapons Policy

By Jason Sibert.

President Donald Trump’s ideas on nuclear arms are making our country less secure on both the foreign and domestic front.

In February, the Trump Administration acknowledged a goal stated in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review Report – for the first time our country deployed a low-yield nuclear warhead on some submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The administration also pledged to spend $44 billion next year to replace and upgrade our already bloated nuclear arsenal. This will cause a power-balancing act where our geopolitical foes (China and Russia) spend more on their nuclear arsenals. It could also trigger an unsustainable arms race.

Even more frightening, the Defense Department recently led an exercise last month simulating a limited nuclear war between our country and Russia. The whole exercise confirmed the false assumption that nuclear war can be won. In a real nuclear war, if one side uses a nuclear weapon the other side retaliates, there is nothing to stop the whole conflict into escalating into a larger nuclear war. Despite this simple fact, Trump Administration officials claim the president needs more “more credible” nuclear use options to counter attacks by Russia.

This is just the beginning! Trump’s 2021 budget includes more of the same. The proposed budget calls for a new nuclear warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a new nuclear armed sea-launched cruise missile that can be deployed on cruise ships and submarines. The Arms Control Association stated that nuclear weapons will cost American taxpayers at least $1.5 trillion over the next 30 years!

Trump’s actions, and the actions of his predecessor President Barack Obama – who started the modernization of our nuclear arsenal – are in violation of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The treaty committed all signers to reducing the size of their own nuclear arsenal and therefore the world’s arsenal. We can start our journey away from the current deadly course by renewing the 2010 New Start Treaty which Trump has already said he might not do. Second, Congress must act as a counterweight to the office of the president and reign in these costly nuclear weapons programs.

The money saved could be redirected into making individual citizens more secure. Our country could fix its crumbling infrastructure, expand health insurance for the millions that don’t have it, protect itself from future pandemics, invest in education from the pre-kindergarten up to the college level, and end the epidemic of homelessness in our country by investing in affordable housing.

Jason Sibert is the Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project.