Trump’s planned tests “are not nuclear explosions,” the US energy secretary said

The US has no plans to carry out nuclear explosions, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, allaying global concerns after President Donald Trump urged the military to resume weapons tests.

“These are not nuclear explosions,” Wright told Fox News on Sunday. “These are what we call non-critical explosions.”

The comments come days after Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had ordered defense officials to “begin testing our nuclear weapons on an equal footing” with competing powers.

But Wright, whose agency is overseeing the testing, said people living in the Nevada desert shouldn’t worry about seeing a mushroom cloud.

“Americans near historic test sites like Nevada Homeland Security have no cause for concern,” Wright said. “So you test all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they provide the proper geometry, and they set up the nuclear explosion.”

Trump’s comments on Truth Social last week were interpreted by many as a sign that the US was preparing to resume full-scale nuclear explosions for the first time since 1992.

In an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that was taped Friday and aired Sunday, Trump reiterated his position.

“I’m saying we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes,” Trump said when asked by CBS’ Norah O’Donnell if he planned for the US to detonate a nuclear weapon for the first time in more than 30 years.

“Russia’s and China’s tests, but they don’t talk about it,” he added.

Russia and China have not conducted such tests since 1990 and 1996, respectively.

Pressed further on the subject, Trump said, “They don’t go and tell you about it.”

“I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” he said, adding North Korea and Pakistan to the list of nations said to be testing their arsenals.

On Monday, China’s foreign ministry denied it had conducted nuclear weapons tests.

As a “responsible nuclear-weapon state, China has always maintained a nuclear self-defense strategy and abided by its commitment to stop nuclear tests,” spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular news conference in Beijing.

She added that China hoped the US would “take concrete actions to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and maintain global strategic balance and stability.”

On Thursday, Russia also denied conducting nuclear tests.

“Regarding the tests of Poseidon and Burevestnik, we hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, citing the names of the Russian weapons. “This cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test.

North Korea is the only country to have conducted nuclear tests since the 1990s — and even Pyongyang announced a moratorium in 2018.

The exact number of nuclear warheads possessed by each country is kept secret in any case – but Russia is believed to have a total of about 5,459 warheads, while the US has about 5,177, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The US-based ACA gives slightly higher estimates, saying America’s nuclear stockpile is about 5,225 warheads, while Russia has roughly 5,580.

China is the world’s third-largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, France has 290, the UK 225, India 180, Pakistan 170, Israel 90 and North Korea 50, FAS said.

According to the US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China has roughly doubled its nuclear arsenal in the past five years and is expected to exceed 1,000 weapons by 2030.