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A senior U.S. official on Friday criticized the New START nuclear treaty between Russia and the United States for failing to include China, speaking at the United Nations a day after the deal expired.
“In a nutshell, New START was flawed,” said Thomas G. DiNanno, the U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security. He said the treaty did not cover all nuclear weapons and “didn’t include China.”
DiNanno spoke to reporters in Geneva before addressing the Conference on Disarmament.
He said U.S. President Donald Trump “has been pretty clear that he wants a better agreement,” and “clarified again last night that he wants a new treaty.”
“He’s been crystal clear. He’s been consistent on it too, since his first administration,” DiNanno said. “So we’ll see how it plays out.”
Asked whether China had agreed to anything, DiNanno said: “We’re always willing to talk to them.”
China said on Thursday it would not join nuclear talks “at this stage” after the treaty’s expiry raised fears of a new global arms race.
Campaigners have warned that the expiration, ending decades of restrictions on how many warheads Russia and the United States deploy, could encourage China to expand its own arsenal.
New START ended at the turn of the calendar on Feb. 5 after Trump did not follow up on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend warhead limits in the agreement for one year.
Russia and the United States together control more than 80% of the world’s nuclear warheads, but arms agreements have been steadily declining.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear forces to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, a reduction of nearly 30% from the previous limit set in 2002.
The treaty also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, though inspections were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not resumed.
The Conference on Disarmament is a negotiating forum with 65 member states and meets in Geneva.
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