In an interview on Fox News earlier this week, Trump said the country’s “greatest” threat was nuclear weapons that are “big monsters.” He went on to lament the amount of money the US has spent on its nuclear weapons program.

That’s good, right? But is it just rhetoric, as it was when President Obama flip-flopped on nuclear weapons?

Yes, sorry to have to remind you, but Obama’s record on nuclear weapons was a classic case of political hypocrisy. On April 5, 2009, in Prague he said: “Today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Ah, hope and change. Well, that didn’t go so well. As the Federation of Atomic Scientists pointed out, at the end of Obama’s second term, “the Obama administration has reduced the U.S. stockpile less than any other post-Cold War administration.”

I share this historical reflection not to dwell on one of the broken promises of the Obama years but as a sobering reminder that many politicians often say one thing and do another. Who knew.

So, while I love what Trump said this week (and previously) about the nuclear threat, his chaotic foreign policy has several European and Asian countries pondering whether they should acquire their own nuclear weapons.

As Debak Das writes in An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb, “While on the surface it might seem as though a warmer relationship between two of the world’s largest nuclear powers could reduce the risk of nuclear war, the opposite is true. We are on the precipice of a global turn toward nuclear instability, in which many countries will be newly incentivized to build their own arsenals, increasing the risk of nuclear use, terrorist subversion, and accidental launch.”

Bottom line, Trump’s rhetoric doesn’t match his actions. But the fact that he’s calling out the nuclear threat is a starting point. Maybe those who have his ear can push him to embrace a foreign policy that moves us toward nuclear disarmament, not deeper into the peril of a globe armed to the teeth with weapons that could end life on Earth.
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