January 31, 2025

Trump Wants a Nuclear Deal. Can He Be the Ultimate Negotiator?

By: Jon B. Wolfsthal

The world has entered the third nuclear age, and nuclear weapons are increasingly seen as valuable—and even usable—weapons by a growing number of states. Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons, China’s rapid nuclear buildup, the United States’s unprecedentedly expensive nuclear modernization, and ongoing nuclear work in North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Iran all make clear the 21st century will be defined by nuclear risks.

The re-election of President Trump is likely to accelerate many of these trends as US allies increasingly question whether the United States will defend their security in a crisis, all while it doubles down on its nuclear investment. This modernization-turned-expansion will likely include at least one new nuclear weapon—a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile—and could also include the resumption of explosive nuclear testing in the United States. Despite these negative developments, Trump suggested at the Davos World Economic Forum last week that he may try to negotiate a new arms control agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s initial offer also included calls to negotiate with China. But it is very unlikely that China will agree to any such talks until its nuclear build-up reaches some parity with the United States and Russia, something that will take perhaps two decades. Until then, any agreement will likely be bilateral between Washington and Moscow.

Should Trump negotiate with Russia’s Putin, and what terms should he pursue if US and global security is to be enhanced?

Sadly, President Trump’s track record of actually negotiating nuclear agreements is poor. During his first term, Trump said he wanted to negotiate a nuclear deal with North Korea (he tried and failed), with Iran (he never tried and withdrew from an existing agreement), and with Russia and China at the same time (he failed at both). But this time around, Trump has a chance to prove his negotiating skills—but only if he does it the right way.

Terms of a nuclear deal. Trump is a baby of the Cold War, an era when nuclear weapons were seen as the ultimate symbol of US and Soviet national power and prestige. And Trump has always seen himself as the ultimate negotiator. In the 1980s already, Trump even reached out to the Reagan administration and proposed himself as the lead negotiator for nuclear talks with the Soviets. Reagan’s team passed on his offer and eventually negotiated the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty or INF in 1987 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START I in 1991—the first nuclear agreement to effectively reduce nuclear arsenals. Ironically, President Trump withdrew from the INF treaty in 2017, some 30 years after he was passed over for the job. But past rejections and failures die hard with Trump.

Read the full article on Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

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