President-elect Donald Trump upped the stakes in a
back-and-forth exchange with President Vladimir Putin over nuclear weapons that
tested the Republican's promises to improve relations with Russia.
Offering a glimpse of how he might conduct diplomacy after
taking office on January 20, Trump reportedly welcomed a nuclear arms race with
Russia and China and boasted that the United States would win it.
MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski said Trump told her in an off-air
phone call: "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass
and outlast them all." The television station did not play his comments on
air.
It was the second brusque comment about atomic weapons in
two days from the New York businessman that alarmed nuclear non-proliferation
experts worried about fueling global tension.
The broadsides from Trump's resort in Florida appeared to be
aimed mostly at Putin even though the two men have vowed to patch up relations
between their countries once the Republican enters the White House.
Trump tweeted unexpectedly on Thursday that, "The
United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until
such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," but gave no
further details.
That comment appeared to be a response to Putin who said
earlier on Thursday that Russia needed to "strengthen the military
potential of strategic nuclear forces."
Russia and the United States are at odds over Syria's civil
war and Ukraine but Cold War-style nuclear tensions have greatly eased in
recent years. Moscow and Washington signed the New START nuclear treaty in 2010
which reduced strategic weapons and delivery systems.
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