Dubai. U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted at resuming nuclear tests, a decades-long U.S. policy that has been stalled has come under stalemate.

His comments raise fears of a new nuclear competition at a time when Washington’s adversaries — Russia, China and North Korea — continue to expand their arms. Nuclear policy, considered a relic of the Cold War, is now in the news again. Russia has repeatedly threatened the United States and Europe with nuclear weapons amid the war in Ukraine and admitted earlier this week that it tested a nuclear-capable cruise missile called Burevestnik.

China is expanding underground silos, and North Korea has demonstrated a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching US soil.

Ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that other countries were conducting weapons tests and directed the US Defense Department to “begin testing on a common basis”. But because the U.S. nuclear arsenal is under the control of the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, this raises legal and structural questions.

Despite Trump’s claim that the United States has “the largest number of nuclear weapons”, the Arms Control Association says Russia has about 5,580 nuclear weapons and the US has 5,225. These two countries have about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenals. The last time the United States conducted a nuclear test was in 1992.

From 1945 to 1992, the United States conducted a total of 1,030 tests. This is the highest number of tests in the world. These tests do not include the bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The initial tests were atmospheric, but were later moved underground. The last test was conducted in Nevada on September 23, 1992, under the name “Divider” as part of Operation Julien.

After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States halted testing and signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. After this, India, Pakistan and North Korea have tested. Israel has long been suspected of possessing nuclear weapons.

Experts say decades of test data have enabled the US to use computer modelling and high-technology to assess its reliability without weapons testing. Since Barack Obama, every US president has supported modernising the nuclear arsenal. It is estimated that about $ 10 trillion will be spent on this.

But experts warn that if the U.S. resumes testing, it will have more political implications than scientists. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the resumption of US testing could be the start of a new arms race that will destabilize global security.

It will take years to reactivate the Nevada testing area. A government presentation prepared in 2018 said that it takes two to four years to complete and implement a nuclear test. ’

If the Trump administration resumes testing, it is sure to have major political implications not only on U.S. policy, but also on the global nuclear balance.