'A gift to China': Trump's nuclear testing push over Russia tussle deepens US Congress divide

US President Donald Trump's decision to resume testing of the country’s nuclear weapons has led to the US Congress being divided, with Democrats calling it a dangerous and misguided retaliation. The move, announced as a warning to Russia, has left Congress divided over national security and foreign policy.

While Republicans are lauding Trump’s push back against the Russian aggression and President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling, Democrats are questioning the utility, safety, financing and precedent of such a step. “It would be a mistake for us to do this because we have nothing, we have very little to gain,” said Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee with oversight of America’s nuclear arsenal.

“If we did a test and then China decided, OK, I’m going to start testing. They’ll start testing their nuclear weapons, then their strategic forces capability gets much better,” Kelly told reporters Thursday. “We have zero to gain. This would be a gift to China.”

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Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democratic member of the Senate committee, questioned why Republicans are not concerned about the money needed for testing while the Trump administration has been adamant about lowering federal spending. “The Department of Defence has a long history of understating costs and claiming shorter timelines for these giant nuclear programs. They sell Congress on a rosy picture of how it will all work out,” she said.

“As soon as Congress signs on the dotted line, the costs start going up, and the time to completion stalls, rolling further and further out … Republicans should be just as outraged as Democrats over the DOD’s lack of honesty about how this program is operating." Some also pointed out that Trump announced the move at a time when the government was under a shutdown, causing concern for several agencies.

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Republicans hail Trump

While the Trump administration has faced backlash from the Democrats, Republicans have been standing resolutely with the president. Trump made the controversial announcement in a Truth Social post Thursday morning in South Korea, shortly before he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Shortly after Trump’s proclamation, Putin boasted of testing new nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable missiles. “This is not escalatory,” said Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calling Putin a “madman” trying to push Trump’s boundaries. “Nobody believes he’s [Putin] going to use nuclear weapons … having said that, he’s been doing this all along, trying to intimidate Trump. I think Trump was saying, I’m not intimidated about it.”

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, supported Trump when asked about the president’s directive to the Pentagon. He said that Trump’s initiative sends a “strong message” to the United States’ adversaries. “The commander in chief wants us to be fully prepared. We are the last great superpower on Earth. China intends to be a near peer-to-peer advisory to us,” Johnson told reporters Thursday morning. “But in order to maintain peace around the world, you have to show strength, and that’s what the president believes in. That’s what he’s demonstrated over and over.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a defence hawk and a close ally of the president, said Trump’s directive to the Department of Defence (DOD) was a “response” to Putin, whom Trump has been pressuring to negotiate a peace deal to end the ongoing war in Ukraine. “I think Putin’s misjudging Trump,” Graham told The Hill on Thursday. “You threaten our country. You will regret it.”

However, some Republican senators acknowledged that the president’s directive lacked details. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Thursday he will “have to see” what Trump means regarding testing nuclear weapons but emphasised that the US has to keep its “nuclear forces modernised for sure.” Overall, Trump’s latest move has left the country divided.