Donald Trump Screwed Up a Big Opportunity to Avoid Nuclear Holocaust
According to news reports, Putin asked if Trump was willing to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the Obama-era nuclear weapons pact that requires each nation to cap their deployed warheads at 1,500 apiece. It was a golden opportunity for Trump to gauge just how serious Putin truly was in cutting the number of warheads Russia currently has.
But there was one problem, according to Reuters: Trump didn’t know what New START was. He reportedly queried his aides for help, and then proceeded to trash the treaty as just another bad deal his predecessor President Barack Obama negotiated, according to sources who spoke with Reuters about the call:
When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.
Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said.
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