President Donald Trump points before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach Fla., on his way back to the White House following a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate. (AP Photo) US President Donald Trump, who recently ordered new tests of the nuclear weapons system, will not involve nuclear explosions at this time, a clarification issued by Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated on Sunday. It is the first clarification issued by the Trump administration since the US president took to Truth Social last week and said he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.”
Energy Secretary Wright said the tests would involve all other components of nuclear weapons, except for the explosion part, in order to make sure that all other parts of the weapons are functioning and can set up a blast. Wright’s Energy department is responsible for carrying out testing for US nuclear explosions.
In an interview to Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing” on Sunday, Wright said, “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions.” The energy secretary added that these tests would be carried out to help in ensuring that the replacement nuclear weapons are better than the previous ones.
Trump, ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, had said that he has ordered the US military to immediately restart the process of testing nuclear weapons, a step that has been in a halt mode for the past 33 years.
The US president’s move appeared to reportedly send signals to rivals Russia and China, who are also nuclear powered countries. Detailing about the move, Energy Secretary Wright said the United States conducted nuclear test explosions in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and corroborated the information and measurements of the blasts.
“With our science and our computation power, we can simulate incredibly accurately exactly what will happen in a nuclear explosion. Now we simulate what were the conditions that delivered that, and as we change bomb designs, what will they deliver?” said Wright.
(with inputs from Reuters)