Trump Says U.S. Is Talking to China and Russia About Denuclearization as Beijing’s Nuclear Arsenal Expands Faster Than Any Rival
President Donald Trump says the United States is now talking with both Russia and China about denuclearization, placing Beijing directly inside a nuclear-arms discussion that for decades was dominated almost entirely by Washington and Moscow. The announcement comes at a moment when China is expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other nuclear-armed state and when the expiration of New START has removed the last major treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces. For Americans, the significance is clear: the nuclear competition is no longer a two-power problem.
Trump said in an October 15 interview that Washington was speaking with Russia and China about reducing nuclear weapons and that he had discussed the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He also said he believes China could eventually “catch up” with the United States in nuclear capability, describing the expansion as a reason to pursue a broader disarmament framework.
China remains far behind the United States and Russia in total nuclear warheads today, but the direction of travel is what matters. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that China possessed roughly 620 nuclear warheads at the beginning of 2026 and described Beijing as expanding its arsenal faster than any other country. China has also been rapidly developing new missile silos, delivery systems and nuclear-capable platforms.
That expansion changes the strategic environment for the United States. For most of the Cold War and the decades that followed, American nuclear planning focused overwhelmingly on Russia. Arms-control agreements were designed around two enormous arsenals with broadly comparable strategic forces. China maintained a much smaller stockpile and stayed outside the central U.S.-Russian arms-control system.
That model is becoming obsolete.
China is building a larger and more sophisticated nuclear force while simultaneously improving its intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based deterrent and strategic bomber capabilities. SIPRI reported that hundreds of missiles had been loaded into three large missile-silo fields in northern China by January 2026, while additional silo construction was continuing elsewhere.
Depending on how Beijing structures those forces, China could eventually deploy an intercontinental missile force comparable in number to that of Russia or the United States. That does not mean China already possesses nuclear parity with Washington. It means American planners now have to account for a third major arsenal growing outside the treaty structures originally built for a bipolar nuclear world.
That distinction is critical.
A United States facing only one peer nuclear competitor can structure deterrence around one primary strategic equation. A United States confronting both Russia and a rapidly expanding China faces a far more complicated problem involving two separate adversaries, different force structures and potentially overlapping crises.
A confrontation over Taiwan, for example, could unfold while Russia remains a major nuclear power capable of threatening NATO and the United States. Washington therefore has to maintain a deterrent capable of addressing multiple theaters without allowing either Beijing or Moscow to believe that American forces are overstretched.
China’s rapid nuclear expansion creates additional pressure because Beijing has historically resisted entering formal arms-control negotiations on the same terms as Washington and Moscow. Chinese officials have argued that the United States and Russia should reduce their much larger arsenals first.
That argument becomes increasingly difficult to sustain as China builds hundreds of new warheads and delivery systems.
The United States does not need China to possess exactly the same number of nuclear weapons before Chinese expansion becomes a strategic problem. Nuclear deterrence depends on survivable forces, delivery systems, targeting options and the ability to threaten unacceptable damage. A smaller but rapidly modernizing Chinese arsenal can still dramatically change U.S. defense calculations.
The end of New START makes the situation even more serious. The treaty, signed in 2010 and extended once for five years, expired in February 2026. It had imposed limits on deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems between the United States and Russia while providing verification mechanisms intended to reduce uncertainty.
Without a replacement framework, Washington now faces uncertainty in two directions at once. Russia is no longer constrained by the same treaty structure, while China continues expanding outside that structure entirely.
That is why Trump’s effort to bring Beijing into nuclear discussions is strategically significant.
A future arms-control framework that excludes China would increasingly fail to reflect the actual balance of nuclear power. Washington could theoretically reach new limits with Moscow while Beijing continued adding warheads, silos and delivery systems outside the agreement. Such an arrangement could eventually place the United States in the position of constraining its own force while a rapidly growing Chinese arsenal remained unrestricted.
Any serious future arms-control agreement therefore needs to account for China’s trajectory.
Verification will be one of the hardest issues. Arms-control treaties work only when each side can verify what the others possess and whether limits are being respected. The United States and Russia spent decades developing inspection regimes, data exchanges and verification procedures. China has never participated in a comparable strategic nuclear transparency system.
Beijing’s growing arsenal therefore creates a transparency problem as well as a numbers problem.
American policymakers need reliable information about the number of Chinese warheads, the status of new silo fields, missile deployments and the operational readiness of China’s nuclear forces. Strategic stability becomes more difficult when one side rapidly expands while providing limited visibility into doctrine and deployment practices.
The risk is especially relevant in the Indo-Pacific.
China’s military pressure against Taiwan has increased over the past several years, while Beijing continues developing conventional and nuclear forces simultaneously. A future Taiwan crisis would therefore occur under a nuclear shadow that is becoming significantly larger than it was a decade ago.
China’s nuclear arsenal may also give Beijing greater confidence that it can deter direct U.S. intervention during a regional conflict. Even if nuclear weapons are never used, their existence shapes conventional military decisions by raising the potential cost of escalation.
That means nuclear expansion can alter the balance of power long before warheads are ever launched.
For the United States, maintaining a credible deterrent therefore remains essential even while pursuing arms reduction. Disarmament negotiations should reduce danger without creating incentives for one side to expand while others impose limits on themselves.
Washington should welcome genuine Chinese willingness to discuss nuclear restraint, but any agreement must be measurable, reciprocal and enforceable.
China’s record of rapid force expansion makes vague political commitments insufficient. The United States needs transparency about warhead numbers, missile fields, deployment patterns and future production if nuclear talks are going to produce meaningful security rather than diplomatic symbolism.
This is particularly important because China’s nuclear growth is part of a much broader military modernization campaign. Beijing is simultaneously developing advanced missiles, submarines, space systems, artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities and conventional forces designed to challenge American military power in the Western Pacific.
Nuclear forces sit at the top of that structure.
They provide the ultimate strategic protection under which Beijing can pursue conventional military pressure. A larger and more survivable Chinese nuclear force could make it harder for Washington to deter aggressive behavior if Chinese leaders believe escalation risks will constrain the United States.
For Americans, the strategic danger is therefore not simply that China owns more nuclear weapons than it did before. It is that Beijing is building a force capable of changing how the United States calculates risk during future crises.
Trump’s statement that Washington is discussing denuclearization with both Moscow and Beijing acknowledges that reality.
The international nuclear system has entered a three-power era. Russia still possesses the world’s largest overall nuclear inventory. The United States maintains the largest number of deployed warheads. China remains smaller but is expanding faster than either of them.
That combination creates a security problem unlike the one American arms-control policy was originally designed to manage.
The United States should continue pursuing nuclear negotiations because reducing the risk of catastrophic war is clearly in America’s interest. But Washington should not approach China as though Beijing were still a marginal nuclear actor whose arsenal can be left outside the main strategic conversation.
China chose to accelerate its nuclear buildup. That decision has consequences.
If Beijing wants to be treated as a responsible major power, it should accept the transparency, verification and restraint expected of one. It cannot indefinitely expand nuclear forces while expecting Washington and Moscow alone to carry the burden of arms control.
Trump’s talks with Xi may provide an opportunity to test whether China is willing to accept that responsibility.
For the United States, however, the benchmark must remain American security. Any future deal should reduce the overall nuclear threat without allowing China to preserve a rapidly growing strategic advantage outside enforceable limits.
The old nuclear order was built around Washington and Moscow. That era is ending. China is now building the arsenal, delivery systems and strategic weight to become a central player in nuclear deterrence.
America’s arms-control strategy has to change accordingly.
