US President Donald Trump on Thursday dismissed a proposal from his Russian counterpart to voluntarily extend limits on strategic nuclear weapons deployments after the treaty that governed them expired.
“Rather than extend ‘New START … we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved and modernised Treaty that can last long into the future,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Arms control advocates caution that the treaty’s expiration could accelerate a nuclear arms race, while critics in the US argue the agreement restricted Washington’s ability to deploy sufficient weapons to deter nuclear threats from both Russia and China.
Trump’s comments were issued in response to a suggestion from Russian President Vladimir Putin that both countries observe for one year the 2010 agreement’s cap of 1,550 warheads deployed on 700 delivery systems, including missiles, aircraft and submarines.
New START was the final agreement in a long line of arms control treaties between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, stretching back more than five decades to the Cold War era. The treaty allowed only one extension, which Putin and former US President Joe Biden approved for five years in 2021.
In his post, Trump described New START as “a badly negotiated deal” that he said “is being grossly violated,” an apparent reference to Putin’s 2023 decision to suspend on-site inspections and other measures meant to assure both sides of compliance.
Putin cited US backing of Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 as justification for that move. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the United States would continue discussions with Russia.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia remained prepared to engage in dialogue with Washington if it responded constructively to Putin’s proposal.
“Listen, if there are any constructive replies, of course we will conduct a dialogue,” Peskov said. The United Nations has urged both countries to reinstate the treaty.
Beyond imposing numerical limits, New START established inspection mechanisms that experts say helped foster trust and confidence between the nuclear rivals, contributing to global security.
If no replacement agreement emerges, security analysts warn of a more volatile environment with a heightened risk of miscalculation. With both sides forced to assume worst-case intentions, the US and Russia could be incentivized to expand their arsenals, particularly as China continues to rapidly build up its own nuclear forces.
Donald Trump and Vladamir Putin
Trump has said he wants to replace New START with a stronger agreement that would include China. Beijing, however, has declined to enter negotiations with Moscow and Washington.
China possesses far fewer warheads, an estimated 600, compared with roughly 4,000 each for Russia and the US. Reiterating its stance on Thursday, Beijing said the treaty’s expiration was regrettable and called on the US to resume dialogue with Russia on “strategic stability.”
There was some confusion surrounding the precise timing of the treaty’s expiration, but Peskov said it would occur at the end of Thursday.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow’s position was that the treaty no longer applied and that both countries were free to determine their next steps.
The ministry said Russia was prepared to take “decisive military-technical countermeasures to mitigate potential additional threats to national security,” while also remaining open to diplomatic engagement.
That warning appeared to respond to the possibility that Trump could expand US nuclear deployments by reversing measures taken under New START, such as reloading warheads onto intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles from which they had been removed.
A bipartisan, congressionally appointed commission in 2023 advised the US to develop plans to reload some or all reserve warheads, arguing the country should be prepared to confront simultaneous conflicts with Russia and China.
Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since Moscow’s invasion in 2022, said the treaty’s expiration stemmed from Russian efforts to bring about the “fragmentation of the global security architecture,” calling it “another tool for nuclear blackmail to undermine international support for Ukraine.”
Strategic nuclear weapons are long-range systems intended to strike an adversary’s capital, military, and industrial centers in the event of nuclear war.
They differ from so-called tactical nuclear weapons, which have lower yields and are designed for limited or battlefield use. Without any constraints, experts say Russia and the US could each deploy hundreds of additional warheads within a few years.
“Transparency and predictability are among the more intangible benefits of arms control and underpin deterrence and strategic stability,” said Karim Haggag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
