MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin could make an informal deal to commit each side to maintain the existing limits on their strategic nuclear arsenals, Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball told TASS.
"Trump and his team have not yet offered a plan for constraining Russia’s strategic arsenal, and they believe they can ‘outspend’ Russia and China in an all-out arms race," he said. "Some Republicans may lobby Trump to withdraw from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. That would be a foreign policy disaster for everyone."
"Instead, Trump and Putin could try to achieve what Biden and Putin could not: a simple, informal deal pledging each side to maintain the existing caps on their strategic nuclear arsenals as long as the other does. This would buy time for formal talks to limit strategic, intermediate and tactical nuclear weapons and the systems that carry them, and forestall a costly arms race that no one can win and make both countries safer and more secure," the researcher went on to say.
According to Kimball, he regrets that Trump’s inauguration speech didn’t mention arms control issues, but is not surprised.
"The second presidential administration of Donald Trump will have the responsibility to make decisions on a complex array of nuclear weapons-related dangers, some of which were partly of his own making and all of which will be difficult to address," he said. "Trump’s proposed solutions to these challenges were hardly explained, let alone debated, during the 2024 campaign cycle, so it is not surprising that his <…> inauguration remarks failed to address any of them."
Ukraine settlement
According to the analyst, any progress in arms control will greatly depend on settling the Ukrainian crisis.
"Perhaps the most critical foreign policy variable will be whether and how Trump pursues his ambitious goal to impose a deal that halts the ongoing <…> war," he said. "A ceasefire likely will not come swiftly, and even if it does, it could lead to major territorial concessions to Russia, an even better-armed Ukraine, and ongoing tensions between the West and the Kremlin that will shape very profoundly the European security environment for years to come."
As talks to end to the conflict in Ukraine begin, "it will also be possible for Trump or Putin and their envoys to begin talks on what should happen after New START expires in February 2026," Kimball said.