(MENAFN) President Donald Trump has argued for restarting nuclear weapons testing, saying the United States should verify its arsenal’s performance through renewed trials and claiming the country’s stockpile is powerful enough “to blow up the world 150 times.” He framed testing as a matter of keeping pace with other nations and ensuring weapons function as intended.

Asked why the U.S. should resume tests after more than thirty years under a congressional moratorium, he replied, “Because you have to see how they work.” He continued: “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do. We’re the only country that doesn’t test, and I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test.”

Reports note that the last full-scale U.S. nuclear detonation took place in 1992, and that a return to such explosions would be a multi-year, costly undertaking. A government energy official characterized the administration’s planned program as involving “non-critical tests,” adding, “No worries about [a mushroom cloud],” when asked whether the program would include atmospheric or underground detonations.

Despite the president’s assertions that rival states are secretly conducting tests, public records show the last confirmed nuclear detonations by those competitors were decades ago. A Kremlin spokesperson clarified that recent trials of advanced Russian systems did not involve nuclear blasts, while the Russian president has said the country would respond “accordingly” if other nuclear powers resumed testing.

Officials in Beijing urged the United States to uphold its commitments under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and to respect the global moratorium on nuclear explosions. Back at home, the vice president and a number of Republican lawmakers have voiced support for Trump’s approach, arguing that non-detonative testing is needed to confirm the reliability of an aging arsenal.

Trump also insisted on the scale of U.S. nuclear capability, stating, “We have more nuclear weapons than any other country. And I think we should do something about denuclearization,” and later reiterating, “We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times. Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons, and China will have a lot.”

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