On Saturday, President Trump announced that he would pull the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a key arms control agreement with Russia. Following through on this threat to terminate the agreement that has successfully curtailed the development and use of land-based, intermediate-range missiles would not only fail to advance U.S. interests, but also throw key allies in Europe under the bus.
Trump explained, “Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years.” He added, “And I don’t know why President Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.” As an explanation, “Russia has not, unfortunately, honored the agreement. So we’re going to terminate the agreement. We’re gonna pull out.”
