President Trump said Friday that he expects to begin brokering a nuclear disarmament deal with Russia “very shortly,” with a possible addition of China later.
Trump spoke about a possible deal after broaching the topic during a more-than-hour-long phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “I think we’re gonna probably start up something very shortly, between Russia and ourselves to start off, and I think China will be added down the road. We’ll be talking about nonproliferation. We’ll be talking about a nuclear deal of some kind. I think it will be a very comprehensive one.”
“We’re talking about a nuclear agreement where we make less and they make less. And maybe even where we get rid of some of the tremendous firepower that we have right now,” Trump said.
“We’re spending billions of dollars on nuclear weapons, numbers like we’ve never spent before. We need that. And they are also — and China is, frankly. Also, we discussed the possibility of a three-way deal instead of a two-way deal,” he said.
Trump mused about a three-nation nuclear arms treaty on April 4 when he hosted Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in the Oval Office for trade talks.
“Between Russia and China and us, we’re all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is ridiculous,” Trump said in April, asking Liu for his thoughts.
“I think it is a very good idea,” the Chinese vice premier said at the time.
On Friday, Trump said he believed it was possible to achieve a “very comprehensive” deal.
“China, I have already spoken to them. They would very much like to be part of that deal. In fact, during the trade talks we started talking about that. They were excited about that. Maybe even more excited about that than about trade,” Trump said.
