President Donald Trump on Wednesday restated his support for denuclearization, warning that the stockpile of nuclear weapons was dangerous for global safety and security.
The president participated in the Future Investment Initiative Institute’s Priority Summit in Miami, Florida, attended by senior cabinet officials, diplomats, and business leaders.
Trump’s remarks touched on a range of issues, including investments, budget cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, the Biden administration’s policies, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The U.S. leader said, “Without strength, it’s going to be very hard to have peace,” while stressing the need for nations to have a strong military to protect their people.
The president, however, discouraged the continued development of nuclear warheads. Russia and the U.S. each have over 5,000; China has around 500, according to the Atomic Scientists and the Federation of American Scientists.
“I was dealing with President Putin on denuclearization,” Trump recalled. “We were talking about it very seriously, and then COVID came and lots of things came. Russia and us have the biggest nuclear [stockpiles] by far.”
“China is not close, but they will be close in three or four or five years. I spoke to President Xi very successfully about it. We were going to denuclearize, we were going to get the smaller powers, three or maybe four, to do something.”
“If you’re president, you get presentations about what we’re building, what we’re having. When I saw the power of nuclear weapons… we can never let that happen. If that happens, the world will be destroyed.”
“You look at Hiroshima, Nagasaki—multiply that by 500 times, the world will be destroyed. We can’t let other countries get nuclear weapons, not only Iran. The power of weaponry now is so enormous that the world would disintegrate; we can’t let it happen.”
During his speech, Trump mocked the previous U.S. government regarding spending in different countries, saying he would like to know the consultant who got $520 million for environmental, social, and governance investments in Africa.
“All of these scams have now been terminated. Over the past month, we have effectively eliminated the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, which was funding much of this lunacy. We shut down the out-of-control CFPB.”
“What they were doing was so terrible, where they were sending the money was terrible. What we haven’t looked at yet is: did the money come back to them? We’ll figure that out pretty easily and quickly,” the president hinted.
Asked to describe the United States in three words, Trump replied, “Love, respect, and strength,” then added, “That may have been the toughest question, actually.”
