In 60 seconds: President Trump told Newsmax on Thursday that Washington is holding talks with both Moscow and Beijing aimed at denuclearizing the countries with the world's biggest nuclear stockpiles — just months after the New START arms treaty expired. "I'd love to denuclearize if possible," he said, adding that he's already spoken with China's Xi Jinping about it. Here's what he actually said, and why every arms-control expert on earth is about to parse it word by word.
- Trump, in a Newsmax interview Thursday: "We're actually talking to Russia about that, and we're talking to China about that denuclearization."
- Newsmax reported Trump has spoken directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping about denuclearization.
- He predicted China will "catch up" with the U.S. nuclear arsenal within the next five years.
- The claim lands months after the New START treaty expired earlier this year — the last major U.S.-Russia arms-control agreement, signed in 2010 and extended once for five years.
- Per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Russia holds the most stored warheads, then the U.S., then China — but the U.S. leads on deployed warheads.
Of all the things a president can say in a cable-news interview, "we're talking to Russia and China about getting rid of nuclear weapons" might be the one with the highest ratio of ambition to detail. Donald Trump said exactly that on Thursday — and then, characteristically, left the entire world to figure out what "talking" means.
What happened
During an interview with Newsmax on Thursday, October 16, Trump said the United States is in talks with Russia and China aimed at denuclearizing the three countries with the largest nuclear stockpiles. "The whole thing is a shame, because I'd love to denuclearize if possible," he said, "but we're actually talking to Russia about that, and we're talking to China about that denuclearization." Newsmax further reported that Trump had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about denuclearization. He also offered a striking prediction: that China will "catch up" with the United States' nuclear arsenal within the next five years.
Latest verified facts
Here's what we can verify, per Reuters' reporting on the interview. The talks claim is Trump's own account — neither Moscow nor Beijing has publicly confirmed any denuclearization discussions as of publication, and no formal negotiation framework, timeline, or venue has been announced. The backdrop is real and significant: the New START treaty — the last remaining major nuclear arms-control agreement between Washington and Moscow — expired earlier this year. Signed in 2010, it allowed exactly one extension, which Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to for five years. Any new limits now would require a fresh executive decision to voluntarily extend them.
The numbers behind the claim, via the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Russia holds the most stored nuclear warheads, followed by the United States and then China. But on deployed warheads — the ones actually mounted and ready — the United States outpaces Russia. China's arsenal is growing fast, which is presumably the basis for Trump's "catch up in five years" prediction.
Why it matters
Strip away the showmanship and this is genuinely one of the biggest foreign-policy claims of Trump's second term. Since New START lapsed, the world's two largest nuclear powers have operated without binding arsenal limits for the first time in over half a century — the vacuum Trump's claim steps into. If real, structured talks with both Russia and China exist, it would be the first trilateral arms-control effort in history. China has always refused bilateral U.S.-Russia frameworks, arguing its arsenal is too small to cap.
And that's the skeptic's case. Beijing has spent decades saying "not us, we're too small" — and while its arsenal is growing, it's still dwarfed by the other two. A president announcing Chinese participation on Newsmax, with no confirmation from either capital, is a long way from a negotiating table in Geneva.
Impact on the USA and the world
For Americans, the stakes are about as high as geopolitics gets: the guardrails on the world's most destructive weapons currently consist of norms, hotlines, and hope. A credible trilateral process would be the most consequential arms-control development since the Cold War. A hollow claim risks something worse than nothing — the illusion of progress while all three arsenals modernize unchecked.
Allies will be watching for detail — NATO capitals, Tokyo, and Seoul all live under the arithmetic of these arsenals. And with the midterms less than three weeks out, the domestic audience matters too: a president talking about eliminating nukes is a powerful closing message, whatever its diplomatic substance.
What happens next
Our take: the tell will be what Moscow and Beijing say — or don't. If either capital confirms talks are underway, this story graduates from interview remark to diplomatic event overnight, and the questions get very specific very fast: who's leading the U.S. side, what's on the table, and does "denuclearization" mean reductions, freezes, or the full abolition the word implies? If both stay silent, treat this as an aspiration wearing an announcement's clothes. Also watch the Pentagon and State Department briefings in the coming days — if there are real talks, the bureaucracy will have to acknowledge them, and career officials are far more careful with their words than presidents on cable news. Either way, the New START vacuum isn't going away, and something will eventually have to fill it. Developing story — we'll update as capitals respond.