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Trump says he wants to maintain nuclear limits with Russia
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Trump aims to maintain nuclear limits with Russia under the New START treaty, emphasizing the importance of arms control as the treaty nears expiration.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would like to maintain the limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments set in the 2010 New START agreement, which expires in February.
"That's not an agreement you want expiring. We're starting to work on that," Trump told reporters as he exited the White House on a trip to Scotland.
It was the first time since taking office that Trump has said he wants to maintain the treaty's limits on strategic nuclear weapons deployments when it expires on February 5.
"When you take off nuclear restrictions, that's a big problem," Trump said.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, is the last remaining nuclear arms reduction accord between the world's largest nuclear powers. It restricts Russia and the U.S. to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic warheads on 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bombers.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin extended the treaty for five years in 2021 but, as written, the pact cannot be extended further. Trump opposed an extension in his first term, calling instead for a new treaty that included China, which spurned the proposal.
Trump has been an advocate for reining in nuclear weapons. He said in February that he would like to have conversations with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping about limiting their nuclear arsenals.
U.S.-Russia relations are at their lowest point in more than 60 years, in part fueled by Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine and his development of exotic new weapons systems.
With New START's expiration, the U.S. and Russia could begin deploying more strategic warheads and each could find it harder to gauge the other's intentions, arms control advocates warn.
(Reporting By Steve Holland and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Don Durfee and Cynthia Osterman)
Strategic nuclear weapons are long-range weapons designed to be used against an enemy's military infrastructure and population centers, typically delivered by intercontinental ballistic missiles or bombers.
Arms control refers to international agreements to regulate and limit the development, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of weapons, particularly nuclear weapons.
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