On January 23, 2025, President Trump suggested “denuclearization talks” with Russia and possibly China. In his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said, “We’d like to see denuclearization. In fact, with President Putin, prior to an election result, which was, frankly, ridiculous, we were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along[1].” On August 26, Trump reiterated his desire. “I think the denuclearization is a very—it’s a big aim, but Russia is willing to do it, and I think China is going to be willing to do it too. We can’t let nuclear weapons proliferate. We have to stop nuclear weapons. The power is too great,” he said at the summit with the South Korean president.

China and Russia reacted to Trump’s proposal differently. “The U.S. and China are not at the same level at all in terms of nuclear capability,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Guo Jiakin on August 27. On the other hand, Russia seemed to be interested in the talk. On September 22, the Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a one-year extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New S.T.A.R.T.), the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the two superpowers. During the televised remark on September 22, he said, “To avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believed it is justified to try to maintain the status quo established by the New START Treaty during the current rather turbulent period.”

A new arms control proposal is a positive sign. Currently, the New S.T.A.R.T. treaty, signed in 2010 between then-U.S. President Barack H. Obama and then-Russian counterpart Dmitriy Medvedev, is set to expire in February 2026. The 2010 arms control treaty reduces and caps the number of strategic nuclear weapons, including Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (I.C.B.M.), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (S.L.B.M.), and nuclear bombers. Initiating a new nuclear disarmament framework is an urgent task for the two superpowers.

“It’s so hard to tell what Trump aims to accomplish because he speaks in a rambling way about this topic,” said Sharon Squassoni, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, citing that “denuclearization” usually means the elimination of nuclear weapons. Regarding the opening of arms control talks, Prof. Squassoni said, “ I think this is well beyond Steve Wittkof’s capabilities or, likely, anyone else at the top levels of the Trump government. So, I am pretty pessimistic about the potential for success.” However, she suggests that the U.S. should accept Putin’s offer to extend the New S.T.A.R.T. treaty.

It should be acknowledged that Trump’s foreign policy goals tend to be haphazard: In the Ukrainian War, he argues that Ukraine can “fight and win” all its territory from Russia, while the same person told the Ukrainian President, “You don’t have cards” in February, and facilitated the summit with Putin in August. Moreover, the first Trump administration had a negative impact on post-Cold War nuclear disarmament. It terminated the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force (I.N.F.) treaty, which prohibited developing and deploying missiles ranging from 500 to 5500km, in 2019. Trump described the treaty, signed in 1987 between the US and the former Soviet Union, as unfair. He cited Russia’s secret deployment of missiles that violated the INF treaty and arms buildup efforts by China, which has never joined any nuclear arms treaties. In the last period of the first term, he viewed the 2010 strategic arms treaty negatively. (Joseph R. Biden, his successor, agreed with Putin to a five-year extension of the New S.T.A.R.T. agreement by February 2026) Trump himself has made several skeptical comments on nuclear arms control, saying, “increase US nuclear stockpiles by ten times,” according to NBC News[2]

On the other hand, skepticism about the possible extension of the 2010 nuclear arms reduction treaty is growing. In 2025, the National Institute for Public Policy (N.I.P.P.), the conservative educational organization focusing on foreign policy, published a report titled “A New Strategic Review For a New Age” and recommended “suspension of U.S. implementation of the New S.T.A.R.T. Treaty to allow for upload increases in the number of operationally deployed warheads on strategic delivery vehicles and prohibit funding for any New S.T.A.R.T. implementation measures,” citing Russia’s non-compliance of the treaty. (The State Department points out that Russia is likely to deploy more warheads than those dictated by the New S.T.A.R.T.)

However, current approaches and possible nuclear talks have problems. Arms buildup leads to negative consequences for both Russia and the U.S: While Russia, devastated by the War in Ukraine, might get weakened further by arms races, the U.S. might not be in an advantageous position in terms of ballooning debts and looming governmental shutdown. Moreover, Russia’s non-compliance with the New S.T.A.R.T. couldn’t allow the U.S. to do the same: It is likely to damage the future arms control and Washington’s credibility as the defender of international treaties. On the other hand, Trump’s strategy toward arms control has significant faults: What does “denuclearization” mean? Does it refer to total elimination of nuclear weapons, reduction, or a cap? History shows the ambiguity of the term led to unsuccessful arms control, such as the 1970s, the Second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (S.A.L.T. II). Then-U.S. President James E. Carter called for “deep cuts” of both Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenal. However, it wasn’t clear what deep cuts exactly meant. That was why SALT II ended in capping the number of strategic nuclear weapons, not in reduction. The U.S. Congress refused to ratify the agreement, partly due to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the following Reagan administration initiated the First Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (S.T.A.R.T. I), which led to the first-ever reduction of strategic nuclear weapons. (S.T.A.R.T. 1 was officially signed by the Soviet Union’s President Mikhail Gorbachev and the U.S. counterpart George H. W. Bush in 1991) What were the differences? One element of Reagan’s approach was prior consultation with the Soviets. Before 1982, the beginning of disarmament, administration officials held several meetings with Soviet counterparts. They explained problems with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (S.A.L.T.), the 1970s US-Soviet arms control agreement: Although it capped both countries’ possession of nuclear missiles and bombers, it didn’t address the issues of nuclear warheads, other technological issues, and, more importantly, didn’t contribute to arms reductions. Such arguments persuaded the U.S.S.R. to acknowledge S.T.A.R.T.’s failures and initiate S.T.A.R.T. I in Geneva.

The Reagan administration held several internal discussions to prepare for arms talks. Many departments and agencies, including the Pentagon, the State Department, and the then-Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (A.C.D.A.), debated various issues: Whether the S.T.A.R.T. should be kept, what kind of weapon system ought to be the focus, and how much both countries’ nuclear stockpiles should be reduced. Despite some disagreements, especially between the Department of State and Defense, the year-long internal debates clarified US goals and positions. The Trump administration should start its internal debates among departments and agencies concerning arms control issues and nuclear disarmament now. They are the necessary prelude before starting the negotiation with Russia.

The Reagan administration’s approach could be a playbook for Trump’s arms control team. The geopolitical situation was as severe then as it is today: the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan shattered US-Soviet détente. Superpower relations were described as a “new Cold War”: There was no U.S.-U.S.S.R. summit from 1979 to 1985. Also, Reagan’s anti-Soviet policies and rhetoric fueled the hostility. At the same time, his administration successfully initiated arms reduction negotiations.

Arms reduction is not an easy task, much less than nuclear abolition. However, even at the height of the Cold War, both U.S. and Soviet leaders shared concerns about nuclear weapons and even advocated their total abolition. Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev’s predecessor, wrote a memorandum to Reagan, saying that doing away with nukes was difficult but possible. Gorbachev discussed with Reagan about total nuclear disarmament by 2000 at the 1986 Reykjavik summit. Following the example of previous generations, Trump should “Make the Earth Denuclearized Again.”