Fire, fury and the 'n-word': Trump's nuclear obsession

Fire, fury and the 'n-word': Trump's nuclear obsession
By Danny KEMP
Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2025

In his first term as US president, Donald Trump reportedly suggested nuking hurricanes. In his second he has caused fresh concern by ordering the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons tests.

His latest remarks, made minutes before a landmark meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, follow a pattern of deeply contradictory signals about atomic bombs.

One day Trump talks about making a deal with Russia and China to give up their arsenals. The next he appears -- though no one is sure -- to be talking about overturning a three-decade halt on testing.

But the subject also appears to fascinate him.

Barely a speech goes by without him addressing the destructive power of nuclear weapons with a kind of awe that befits a 79-year-old who grew up during the Cold War.

"It's been on his mind since the 80s. He wants to solve this issue," Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told AFP.

"My concern is that his current approach as president is incoherent, inconsistent, and his team is not constructed or managed in a way that can follow through on his best intentions."

- 'Rocket man' -

The threat -- and promise -- of nuclear weapons has been a thread through both of Trump's presidencies.

During his first he spent much time and energy on summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un -- after initially dubbing Kim "Rocket Man" and threatening Pyongyang with "fire and fury like the world has never seen."

Trump's three encounters with Kim failed to produce any deal with the only country known to have carried out nuclear tests in the 21st century.

But the US president has continued to hold out hope of a breakthrough, saying he would have liked to meet Kim during his trip to Asia this week and hailing their "great relationship."

It wasn't just nuclear proliferation on Trump's mind in his first term.

A report emerged in 2019 that Trump had asked national security officials whether it would be possible to drop an atomic bomb in a hurricane to stop it approaching US shores. Trump said the report was "fake news."

After his return to the White House in January, Trump swiftly rekindled his old obsession.

He has repeatedly suggested a deal with Russia and China for "de-nuking," and in February even suggested an extraordinary three-way summit with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the subject.

"There's no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons," Trump told reporters at the time. "We already have so many you could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over."

- 'Madman' theory -

Yet at other times he has rattled the nuclear saber.

Discussing his recent decision to deploy two US submarines after what he said were nuclear threats by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Trump even referenced a racial slur.

"I call it the n-word. There are two n-words and you can't use either of them," Trump said in a speech to top US military officers in September.

Trump's comments ordering the Pentagon to "start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis" with Russia and China have, however, caused unusual confusion and alarm.

Why would Trump talk about restarting full tests?

It was possible that Trump was using the "madman" theory of bold threats to coerce adversaries into deals -- an approach he has often relied on in trade and other negotiations, said Kimball, the arms control expert.

But he added that "for the president to make such provocative, ambiguous statements is irresponsible and dangerous and frankly incompetent."

Kimball compared the situation to the recently released movie "A House of Dynamite," a nuclear thriller in which a US president faces the dilemma of how to respond to a lone missile strike as he evacuates Washington in his helicopter.

Trump, he pointed out, "is the same guy who would be sitting on Marine One."

Trump call for nuclear tests sows confusion
Paris (AFP) Oct 30, 2025 - President Donald Trump Thursday sowed confusion among experts with his call for the start of nuclear weapons testing, with some pundits interpreting the announcement as US preparations for a shock resumption of explosive testing after more than 30 years.

The US president baffled foreign government and nuclear weapons experts alike when he said he had ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testing "on an equal basis" to China and Russia.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the US president also said that it had been "many years" since the United States had conducted nuclear tests and it was "appropriate" to start again because others are testing.

The last time Russia officially tested a nuclear weapon was in 1990, and the United States last tested a nuclear bomb in 1992.

North Korea is the only country to have conducted nuclear weapons tests this century.

Heloise Fayet, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, said it was not immediately clear what Trump meant -- or whether the United States might be preparing to tear up the global rulebook and resume nuclear weapons testing after a 33-year hiatus.

"Either he is talking about testing missiles, but the United States already does that," she said.

"Or he is talking about subcritical tests, but I don't think he has mastered that level of technology," she added, referring to low-yield tests authorised by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

"Or he is talking about real tests, but no one does that except North Korea."

Trump's announcement came after President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had in recent days tested nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable weapons -- the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Poseidon underwater drone.

On Thursday, the Kremlin sought to cool tensions, saying those tests did not constitute a test of an atomic weapon.

- 'Extremely complicated' -

William Alberque, a former head of NATO's nuclear non-proliferation centre, pointed to Trump's lack of clarity.

"Initially, I thought Trump was reacting to Russia's announcements about new systems like the nuclear-powered cruise missile Burevestnik and the Poseidon torpedo. So my first interpretation was that Trump was referring to system testing, not warhead testing," he told AFP.

But like all nuclear powers, the United States already tests its weapons.

In September, the United States carried out tests of its nuclear-capable Trident missiles.

There is also a possibility that Trump might have meant the so-called subcritical nuclear tests, said Fayet.

"We are almost certain that Russia and China are conducting subcritical tests that release a certain amount of energy but remain within the limits," said Fayet.

But "in the United States, they are conducting more restrictive subcritical tests, with no energy release, no heat and no critical reaction".

Trump could demand to catch up, she said.

"But it's an extremely complicated subject, and I don't know if he is at that level of subtlety," she added.

- 'Chain reaction' -

Alberque said that after closely examining Trump's statements, he was inclined to think that "he's talking about warhead testing."

Many Trump supporters have long lobbied for a resumption of nuclear testing, despite the existence of computer-based simulations as well as serious negative international consequences.

"America must prepare to test nuclear weapons," the influential conservative think tank Heritage Foundation said in a report in January, referring to a "deteriorating security environment".

Some experts said Trump's latest pronouncements were a gift to the governments of Russia and China.

In 2023, Putin ordered the Russian defence ministry and the nuclear agency Rosatom to "ensure readiness for testing Russian nuclear weapons".

"We know for certain that some figures in Washington are already considering the possibility of conducting live tests of their nuclear weapons," Putin said during his address to the Federal Assembly in February, 2023.

"But if the US conducts tests, then we will too."

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said on X that Trump's policy was "incoherent: calling for denuclearisation talks one day; threatening nuclear tests the next".

The resumption of such tests "could trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by US adversaries, and blow apart the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," Kimball said.