Trump's policies could greatly expand number of nuclear-armed states - FT
Photo: Trump's policies could raise number of nuclear-armed states to 15-25 (Getty Images)
The policy of US President Donald Trump to refuse to provide security guarantees may lead to a sharp increase in the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons. The risk of catastrophe is rising, the Financial Times reports.
According to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the number of official nuclear-armed states is limited to the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
India, Israel, and Pakistan, which never signed the pact, have also developed nuclear weapons, as has North Korea - the only country to have withdrawn from the NPT.
Analysts fear that if the NPT collapses, partly due to the withdrawal of US guarantees, the world may approach 15-25 nuclear-armed states, with a significant risk of a catastrophic nuclear war.
President Donald Trump's pivot toward Moscow and his sharp disregard for NATO have prompted old allies - from Berlin and Warsaw to Seoul and Tokyo - to consider what once seemed unthinkable: how to prepare for a possible abandonment of the US nuclear shield.
"Undermining the great powers' consensus on non-proliferation is a reality,” said Ankit Panda from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of the book The New Nuclear Age. "The Trump phenomenon has become a powerful catalyst for voices in US-allied states, which now believe that nuclear weapons in their own hands are a fundamental solution to the problem caused by America’s unreliability."
In November 2024, The Times reported that Ukraine could build a nuclear bomb within a few months if the US reduces its aid.
According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Ukrainians generally support the restoration of nuclear weapons, which Ukraine gave up 30 years ago under the Budapest Memorandum.
