US President Donald Trump plans to start talks with Russia and China on nuclear disarmament, BTA reported.
“When things calm down, I will meet with China and I will meet with Russia“, he said at the White House.
He also said he hoped the three countries would eventually agree to cut their huge defense budgets in half.
In a speech to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump expressed regret over the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the country's nuclear deterrent and said he hoped to get commitments from US rivals to reduce their own spending.
“There is no reason to create brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many“, Trump said. "You can destroy the world 50 times, 100 times. And here we are creating new nuclear weapons and they are creating nuclear weapons." "We are all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive," Trump said. Although the United States and Russia have vast stockpiles of weapons from the Cold War, Trump predicted that China would catch up with them in terms of their ability to deliver devastating nuclear strikes "within five or six years." He said that if the weapons were ever used, "that would probably be the end of it." of everything.
Trump also said he would seek to start nuclear talks with both countries after "we fix everything" in the Middle East and Ukraine.
“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi (Jinping) of China, with President (Vladimir) Putin of Russia. And I want to say: “Let's cut our military budget in half“. And we can do it. And I think we will succeed“, he explained.
During his first term, Trump tried unsuccessfully to bring China into talks on reducing nuclear weapons at a time when the United States and Russia were negotiating an extension of the treaty known as “New START“, the Associated Press reports. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty during President Joe Biden's administration, and both countries continued their large-scale programs to extend the life or replace their Cold War-era nuclear arsenals.
The United States will increase its military sales to India from 2025. and will possibly provide it with F-35 fighter jets, US President Donald Trump said, quoted by Reuters and BTA.
Speaking at a joint press conference after his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House, Trump also said that the countries had reached an agreement that includes India importing more US oil and gas to reduce the trade deficit between the two countries.
The US president also said that Washington and Delhi would work together to counter what he called the “threat of radical Islamic terrorism“.
Modi, for his part, said that the US and India had set a goal of doubling their bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.
The Indian prime minister also said that the US and India would work together in the field of artificial intelligence and semiconductors and would focus on building strong supply chains for strategic minerals.
Earlier, a Trump administration official told reporters that U.S. and Indian officials were also making progress in talks on a bilateral trade deal and hoped to conclude one this year.
The U.S. president told a news conference that India had announced tariff cuts on U.S. goods and that he and Modi would begin talks on trade imbalances with a view to signing an agreement. He said the U.S. was entitled to equal treatment and that the U.S. trade deficit with India could be offset by oil and gas sales.
Trump said he had raised India's high tariffs during his first term but had failed to get any concessions. He said that under the new system of reciprocal tariffs, which he announced last night, the United States would simply impose the same tariffs as India.
“It's very difficult to sell to India because there are trade barriers, very high tariffs“, Trump said. “Right now, we are a reciprocal nation... Whatever India charges, we will charge it. Whatever another country charges, we will charge it. So that's called reciprocity, which I think is very fair“, he added.