Trump Orders Immediate Nuclear Weapons Testing Before Critical Meeting with Chinese President Xi

Trump announced that nuclear weapons testing would commence immediately. (File)

Prior to his scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, US President Donald Trump declared he has directed the Department of Defense to promptly resume nuclear weapons testing to maintain parity with other nuclear powers.

"Due to testing programs in other countries, I have instructed the Department of War to begin testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. This process will commence immediately," Trump stated on Truth Social before his meeting with Xi in South Korea.

Trump further remarked, "Russia currently ranks second, with China in a distant third position, though China will achieve parity within 5 years."

On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo, which military experts believe could devastate coastal regions by generating massive radioactive ocean swells.

As Trump has strengthened both his rhetoric and position regarding Russia, Putin has openly demonstrated Russia's nuclear capabilities with the test of a new Burevestnik cruise missile on October 21 and nuclear launch exercises conducted on October 22.

The United States hasn't conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1992.

Such tests provide crucial data about new nuclear weapons' capabilities and confirm whether existing weapons remain functional.

Beyond yielding technical information, conducting a nuclear test would be interpreted by Russia and China as a deliberate demonstration of American strategic power.

The United States inaugurated the nuclear era in July 1945 with the detonation of a 20-kiloton atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico, followed by dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, bringing World War Two to an end.