{"id":26520,"date":"2018-07-15T17:45:48","date_gmt":"2018-07-15T17:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/07\/15\/nuclear-arms-race-is-an-expected-topic-for-trump-putin-talks\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:48:18","slug":"nuclear-arms-race-is-an-expected-topic-for-trump-putin-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/07\/15\/nuclear-arms-race-is-an-expected-topic-for-trump-putin-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear arms race is an expected topic for Trump-Putin talks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump seems of two minds on nuclear weapons. He muses about eliminating them but also has called for a U.S. buildup and bragged about his nuclear \u201cbutton.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, while forecasting a face-to-face meeting on this topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said in the same breath that an arms race<\/a> was \u201cgetting out of control\u201d and that he would never allow any country to have weapons \u201ceven close to what we have,\u201d although Russia already does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How these seemingly competing instincts will play out in his talks Monday with Putin in Helsinki could profoundly affect the direction of U.S. defense policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before leaving a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, Trump was asked by a reporter whether he would raise long-standing U.S. allegations that Russia is violating a Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty, and whether he favors extending a separate treaty that he has criticized in the past as disadvantaging the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His one-word answer to the two-part question was “yes” \u2014 the first public indication that he wants to extend the New Start treaty, which expires in three years. Then on Friday, he vaguely spoke about how “it would be a tremendous achievement if we could do something about nuclear proliferation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\t