Washington: President-elect Donald Trump on today reportedly said he is fine with a nuclear arms race and exuded confidence that the US would outlast any another country in terms of atomic weapons.
Trump reportedly said this in an off-air conversation to Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the popular ‘Morning-Joe’ show on MSNBC, the news channel said.
“Let it be an arms race…We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,” Trump told Brzezinski in an off-air conversation as reported by her during the Friday morning show.
Trump’s comments comes a day after he tweeted that “The US must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes”.
The tweet raised concerns among foreign policy watchers.
Trump’s spokesperson Sean Spicer told the news channel that the tweet means that business as usual is over.
“There’s a few countries around the globe, Russia being one of them, and China and others that have talked about increasing their nuclear capabilities. I think the president-elect’s point is unless these guys come to their senses and recognise that this is not a smart move. Increasing the nuclear stockpile around the globe is not good for anybody but the US is not going to sit back,” he said.
“It’s not a reaction, it’s a point that he’s making which is domestically and internationally, business as usual is over. This guy is going to bring real change and that means that if our partners around the globe think the US is going to sit back they’re sadly mistaken,” Spicer said.
He said it is putting every nation on notice that the US is going to reassert its position in the globe.
“Make sure that if you act, the United States is going to act,” he said adding that Trump during his campaign made it very clear that on every aspect of policy he’s not going to sit back and wait.
In an interview to CNN, Spicer said expansion of nuclear weapons is unlikely to happen.
“It means that there are countries around the globe right now that are talking about increasing their nuclear capacity. And the US is not gonna sit back and allow that to happen without acting in kind. And I think the president-elect is very clear that he’s gonna be very active in putting America’s security first and foremost. And if another country wants to threaten our sovereignty or our safety, he will act,” he said.
At the same time, he said he does not believe that expansion of nuclear weapons is going to happen.
“I will tell you this, but I do believe that it won’t happen because I think what they have seen, domestically and internationally, is this is a man of action,” he said.
“Yesterday, he put out a statement early in the morning talking about the resolution that was coming forward in the UN Security Council and the Egyptians and the Israelis called him afterwards, it got taken down. He’s a man of action that is getting things done for this nation,” Spicer said.
PTI