Re: "Trump wants denuclearization talks with Russia and China, hopes for [military] spending cuts"
Posted: 14th February 2025
If Trump really wants nuclear abolition then he should be informed of Russia and China’s demands for “strategic security” by also including a ban on weapons in space and cyberwar. They have been asking for the US to agree to treaties banning space weapons and cyberwar for years, often in UN forums where the US vetoes their model space weapons ban treaties, barring all discussion, and in UN Disarmament Committee resolution. It started when Gorbachev asked Reagan to forego Star Wars in return for nuclear abolition which Reagan refused to ban. This is worth a memo and some research on the sorry history of US refusal to agree to Russian and Chinese demands for more than just abolishing nuclear weapons. Alice
Alice Slater
446 E 86 St
New York NY 10028
212-744-2005
646-238-9000(mobile)
We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire’s level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet’s daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us. Buckminster Fuller
On Fri, Feb 14, 2025 at 12:37 PM David Vine <[email protected]> wrote:
P.S. This from the Center for International Policy seems a helpful, carefully worded response to a proposal that should have been made long ago. How we can further help the proposal become reality seems the key question.
David
David Vine
www.DavidVine.net
www.DismantleTheMIC.org
www.BaseNation.us
www.OverseasBases.net
www.LetUsReturnUSA.org
On Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 6:18 PM Sara DuBois <[email protected]> wrote:
Our response:
https://bsky.app/profile/cipolicy.bsky.social/post/3li3syipgsk27
https://x.com/CIPolicy/status/1890175805172642121
https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/trump-would-make-america-greater-by-reducing-pentagon-spending-nuclear-weapons/
February 13, 2025
Trump Would Make America Greater by Reducing Pentagon Spending, Nuclear Weapons
In response to President Trump’s comments suggesting denuclearization and reducing defense spending in line with Russia and China, Center for International Policy executive vice-president Matt Duss issued the following statement:
“If Trump is serious about significantly reducing nuclear arsenals and Pentagon spending in step with Russia and China — lawmakers and civil society should stand ready to help do it right, thereby improving national security and human security in the US and globally.
There is no good reason to continue our current trajectory of proliferating nuclear weapons and ever-increasing defense budgets, half of which goes to giant defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, with minimal transparency or accountability. This practice has raised numerous concerns regarding waste and corruption. It is primarily greed, self-interest and a lack of political will that propagates the nearly $1 trillion –half of our discretionary budget—that goes annually to these programs. These spending levels make us less, not more, secure by making conflict more likely and fueling the flawed strategy of American hegemony behind so many of the costly US foreign policy boondoggles of the 21st century and the nuclear near-misses of the last 80 years.
The Trump administration has not always made good on past pledges –including a similar suggestion in his first term— and many of the promises upon which he’s acted do great damage, but this is a promise he should keep for the good of Americans and people around the world.”
###David
David Vine
On Fri, Feb 14, 2025 at 12:29 PM David Vine <[email protected]> wrote:
ICYMI. This seems incredibly important to build on.
David
David Vine
—-—- Forwarded message—-—
From: ‘Julia Gledhill’ via Pentagon Budget Campaign <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Subject: Trump wants denuclearization talks with Russia and China, hopes for defense spending cuts
To: [email protected]<[email protected]>
https://apnews.com/article/trump-china-russia-nuclear-bbc1c75920297f1e5ba5556d084da4de
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that eventually he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the U.S. adversaries to cut their own spending.
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more productive,” Trump said.
While the U.S. and Russia hold massive stockpiles of weapons since the Cold War, Trump predicted that China would catch up in their capability to exact nuclear devastation “within five or six years.”
He said if the weapons were ever called to use, “that’s going to be probably oblivion.”
Trump said he would look to engage in nuclear talks with the two countries once “we straighten it all out” in the Middle East and Ukraine.
“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”
Trump in his first term tried and failed to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks when the U.S. and Russia were negotiating an extension of a pact known as New START. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty during the Biden administration, as the U.S. and Russia continued on massive programs to extend the life-spans or replace their Cold War-era nuclear arsenals.
Julia Gledhill
Research Associate | The Stimson Center
1211 Connecticut Avenue NW, Floor 8
Washington, DC 20036
[email protected]