US President Donald Trump has reportedly told Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Washington and Moscow reignite the arms race, the United States would win it.
Putin’s revelation of new nuclear-capable Russian weapons that can reach the United States “really got under the president’s skin,” one official told NBC News on Thursday.
“If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I’ll win,” Trump reportedly told his Russian counterpart during a phone call last week.
Delivering his annual state of the nation speech in Moscow earlier this month, Putin expressed concerns about the new US nuclear posture which he said has lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
The new American policy allows the use of nuclear weapons “in response to a conventional attack or even a cyberthreat,” the Russian president said, adding, “Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only in response to a nuclear attack or an attack with other…