During his first call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin Thursday, President Donald Trump reportedly paused the call to ask what the New START nuclear arms treaty was, then proceeded to rail against it.
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“I would not formulate any positions as of now”. “He wanted an opinion on something, which is … very different”.
A former U.S. secretary of defense and a leading expert on nuclear security, William Perry, said rejecting Russia’s reported offer to extend the New START treaty would be a “tragic mistake”. “I understand things”, President Trump assured America on Wednesday. It also “limits deployed land- and submarine-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers”.
During his confirmation hearings, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he supported the New START treaty and reiterated the importance of staying “engaged” with Russian Federation. We’re exhausted in terms of nuclear.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer denied President Donald Trump didn’t know what a key nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia’s president was when the two men spoke by phone two weeks ago.
Speaking after the Kremlin talks Friday with his Slovenian counterpart, Putin said that Russian Federation welcomes Trump’s statements about the need to restore the strained Russia-U.S. ties. Yet it has not appreciably changed its course on Ukraine or Syria; instead it is escalating and broadening the conflict via nuclear saber rattling, cyber attacks and information warfare. “The US wants to achieve the situation when no force in the world could inflict it an unacceptable damage”.
Current U.S. planning calls for spending more than $1 trillion over the next 30 years to update the American nuclear arsenal.
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“Unfortunately, Mr. Trump appears to be clueless about the value of this key nuclear risk reduction treaty”, he commented. “It is one of the few cornerstones of the Russian-US relations and in the global security system. It would be a grave mistake for the United States to pull out of the treaty or allow it to expire”. His crime? Lobbying Congress to impose economic sanctions against Russia under the Magnistky Act, a law that itself was named for a Russian human rights lawyer who was beaten to death in Putin’s jails.
