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80 years after atomic bombs devastated Japan, Donald Trump’s actions risk nuclear proliferation

 The Conversation 20th April 2025

1. Jamie LevinAssociate Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University
2. Youngwon ChoAssociate Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University

The policy of every American president since Harry S. Truman has been to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

They have not always been successful. The world’s most powerful weapons spread, with nine countries now possessing them. But no United States president has actively sought their further proliferation, as the belligerent policies of Donald Trump are now set to do.

In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal, which had successfully placed limits on the enrichment of weapons-grade materials in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran has since accelerated its nuclear weapons program. Estimates now put Iran within months or even weeks of producing several bombs.

A short time later, after a series of escalating threats, Trump suggested that North Korea had agreed to denuclearize. Talks ensued, but a deal never materialized.

In fact, Trump failed to stop, let alone roll back, North Korea’s ambitious nuclear weapons programs. North Korea is now said to possess at least 50 warheads as well as the means to deliver them.

No longer an ally

Under the second Trump administration, the world is facing a rapidly growing proliferation risk of a different kind, one that is found not only among the usual suspects in Iran and North Korea, but also among a long list of U.S. allies who once basked in American security guarantees.

Merely two months into Trump’s second term, America’s European allies have grown increasingly concerned that the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally.

That’s due to his suspension (and then reinstatement) of weapons transfers and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, an explicitly prioritized rapprochement with Russia, open denigration of its NATO allies, suggestions that the U.S. would not come to their defence if attacked, and his active and repeated threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Canada, Greenland and Panama.

Against this backdrop, Trump’s guiding Project 2025 principles advocate escalating nuclear testing, breaking a long-held taboo.

Once protected by its nuclear umbrella, America’s closest allies are now threatened by it. Europe’s loss of confidence in the U.S. is so severe that finding alternatives has now become part of serious discussions in capitals across the continent. France and the United Kingdom are poised to fill the void by extending their nuclear deterrence to the likes of Germany and Poland.

The scene in Asia

But the risk of proliferation is greatest in East Asia. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump mused that Japan and South Korea might need to develop nuclear weapons. “It’s only a matter of time,” he said.

That time is unfortunately now…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Catastrophic dangers

While going nuclear may be individually rational for the East Asian countries, the collective outcome for the region and beyond is fraught with catastrophic risks.

The world is now grappling with the most dangerous collective action problem because the solution that has worked so well for decades — credible American security assurance — is eroding.

In upending the very international order that the U.S. established, the Trump administration is not merely chipping away at the global security architecture underpinned by myriad American security guarantees. It’s imploding the post-Second World War security order from within and the moral, political and institutional bulwark against nuclear proliferation.

In this predatory, zero-sum world of Trumpian foreign policy, putting America First necessarily means putting everyone else last — and, along the way, inadvertently fuelling nuclear proliferation. https://theconversation.com/80-years-after-atomic-bombs-devastated-japan-donald-trumps-actions-risk-nuclear-proliferation-254459

April 23, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war