President Donald Trump said Monday the United States military will ramp up its arsenal of nuclear weapons to pressure both Russia and China to curb theirs.
Moments before stepping onto Marine One on the south lawn of the White House to begin his journey to Houston for a rally, Trump was asked about his administration's move to pull the U.S. from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed between the U.S. and Russia.
"Until people come to their senses we will build it up," Trump said. "Russia has not adhered to the agreement. This should have been done years ago. Until people come to their senses, we have more money than anybody else by far. We will build it up.
"When they do, then we will all be smart and we'll all stop. And by the way, not only stop, we will reduce, which I would love to do."
Trump added that Russia, in recent recent years, has "not adhered to the spirit of that agreement or the agreement itself. China is not included in this agreement, they should be included in the agreement."
The deal was originally signed by former President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, who at the time was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It ordered the elimination of all short- and intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles by both countries.
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