In the age of unlimited nuclear weapons, Trump's arms buildup, fueled by the "China nuclear threat," Lee Jae-myung 'Triggers'
With the Trump administration ushering in an era of unlimited nuclear weapons, The New York Times warned that President Trump's arms race with Russia, including nuclear tests, citing the potential Chinese nuclear threat as a "threat to democracy."
The NYT editorial board stated on the 16th, "The Trump administration seems to believe more is better when it comes to nuclear weapons," and "The administration should stop using China's potential threat as an excuse to start an arms race with Russia."
The editorial board stated, "Today, the United States and Russia each possess a nuclear warhead advantage of approximately 6 to 1 over China, possessing arsenals capable of destroying any nation on Earth multiple times over. The notion that New START is disadvantageous to the United States is misguided."
The editorial board openly warned, "Congress must reestablish its role," adding, "The current U.S. president possesses sole and unlimited authority to initiate nuclear war. In an era of rising tensions and corrupting treaties, leaving the fate of the world in the hands of a single individual is a risk no democracy can tolerate."
The Trump administration's nuclear arms race was triggered by the Gyeongju summit in October of last year, when President Lee Jae-myung ordered the resumption of nuclear testing upon leaving the Korean Peninsula, following an agreement between the two leaders on the demand to "build nuclear submarines to monitor China."
The New York Times editorial board stated, "The world is entering a dangerous new nuclear age." "This month, the New START Treaty between the United States and Russia-the last major constraint on the world's two largest nuclear arsenals—expired. Instead, the Trump administration is replacing it with vague threats and dangerous brinkmanship, heralding an unchecked arms race not seen since the height of the Cold War."
The committee continued, "President Trump's approach to this new era of unrestricted action is shocking in both words and practice. Instead of maintaining the stability that has existed for half a century, the administration is weighing the deployment of more nuclear weapons and, perhaps most recklessly, the resumption of underground nuclear testing."
The Republican Reagan administration, which established a hard-line conservative system, made the "nuclear war" with the former Soviet Union a daily media issue in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, as South Korea became a tool for reinforcing the Cold War, the conflict between the US early warning and automatic launch systems and the Soviet air defenses intensified. KAL007 entered the airspace over the Kamchatka Peninsula, the arena of intense competition, and was shot down.
The nuclear arms race of the 1980s was fueled by the media's propaganda of a nuclear war crisis, fueled by the capitalist powers' strategy of maximizing supply-side productivity competition to undermine the backbone of the socialist economic system, which had low productivity. The Soviet Union, centered on heavy industry, disbanded the Union and signed the Strategic Nuclear Reduction Treaty with Reagan under New START, which was terminated in February of this year.
With the New START Non-Invasion Treaty now defunct, the US Navy is considering reactivating the malfunctioning launch tubes of its Ohio-class submarines and equipping them with additional warheads on its intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The New York Times reported, "This move could more than double the currently deployed arsenal," adding, "Officials have also proposed a 'Trump-class' warship equipped with nuclear-capable cruise missiles."
The Make American Shipbuilding Great Again (MASGA) initiative, agreed upon at the South Korea-U.S. summit, will see the expansion of the alliance's $150 billion naval buildup, including the first such deployment of a Trump-class warship.
The U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Energy demonstrated the potential for rapid deployment of nuclear power for military and civilian applications on the 16th by transporting a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah by cargo plane for the first time, Reuters reported.
"The agencies, working with California-based Bala Atomics, flew one of their Ward Micro Reactors, unfueled, on a C-17 aircraft to Hill Air Force Base in Utah,"
Reuters reported. "Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffy attended the C-17 flight carrying the reactor and its components, praising the event as a breakthrough in U.S. nuclear energy and military logistics," the Reuters report said on the 16th. "This brings us closer to equipping our nation's warfighters with the tools they need to win battles by allowing us to deploy nuclear forces wherever and whenever we need them," Assistant Secretary of Defense Duffy told reporters.
Reuters reported that "the Trump administration views small nuclear reactors as one way to expand U.S. energy production," adding that "President Trump issued four executive orders in May of last year to expand the domestic nuclear presence to meet the growing energy demand for national security and competitive AI development."
Shortly after becoming prime minister a year ago, Canadian Prime Minister Carney declared that he would "increase Canada's military spending to levels not seen since the Korean War." On June 9 of last year, he poured approximately CAD7 billion into Canada's military, seven years ahead of schedule, to meet the minimum 2% of GDP requirement set by NATO, which was 3% of GDP, as Trump had demanded.
Canada subsequently agreed to increase its military spending to match NATO's new 5% of GDP target by 2035. Prime Minister Carney reduced US weapons purchases, announcing that "70% to 75% of our weapons will not be procured from the United States."
He also reduced the number of F-35 fighter jets from 88 to 16 in the US, and chose to build 12 diesel submarines, putting Hanwha Ocean in competition with Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. Hanwha's production of US models became a key issue in the US arms race.
A management team led by Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik signed an agreement exploring the introduction of a Korean auto manufacturing plant in Canada. Hanwha subsequently agreed to invest $250 million in Canada's only domestic steel manufacturer to build a structural steel beam plant and purchase products.
Canada's Algoma Steel has been laying off workers since President Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Canadian steel, and Hanwha, which is involved in the Navy's military buildup, is shouldering the cost of rebuilding the plant.
The New York Times editorial board concluded, “The State Department’s argument is that the old treaty imposed ‘unacceptable’ restrictions on the United States and did not take into account China’s growing arsenal.” They added, “While China is expanding its nuclear arsenal, the strategy of undermining existing defenses with Russia to force Beijing into negotiations has already failed.”
The board continued, “China has repeatedly made clear it has no interest in negotiations, and its arsenal is a fraction of the size of the United States’,” and, “By giving up limitations, President Trump is not bringing his competitors to the table; he is inviting them to join him in a nuclear arms race.” The Lee Jae-myung administration changed the nuclear submarine construction policy from "allowing construction in the US" to "producing it in Korea" at the summit, and is now demanding the transfer of military nuclear weapons to the US as a new condition, staking its claim on the Trump administration's "restoration of the 25% tariff rate."
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yoo announced on the 17th that the Hudson Institute observed a magnitude 2.75 “explosion” at the Lop Nor test site in western China, 450 miles (720 km) away, from a remote seismic observatory in Kazakhstan on June 22, 2020. “The data is not consistent with a mining explosion. It’s not consistent with an earthquake at all,” he said.
Reuters reported that Yoo, a former intelligence analyst and defense official with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, said in his announcement that he had “since looked at additional data” and that “there is very little chance of anything other than an explosion, a single explosion,” based on the nuclear test.
In another article, Reuters reported that “the Trump administration announced three projects worth $36 billion on the 17th that will be funded by Japan,” including an oil export facility in Texas, an industrial diamond plant in Georgia, and a natural gas power plant in Ohio. President Trump announced the Japanese investment at Truth Social that day, stating, "These projects are the first investments under Japan's $550 billion commitment to invest in the United States, part of a trade agreement that reduced tariffs on Japanese imports to 15%."
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also said in a statement that day that the $33 billion Portsmouth, Ohio, power plant will be the largest natural gas-fired power plant in U.S. history, that Japan will invest in the $2.1 billion Texas GulfLink deepwater crude oil export facility off the Texas coast, and that a synthetic industrial diamond manufacturing plant in Georgia will meet 100% of U.S. demand for synthetic diamond grit, a critical input for semiconductor production.
The United States has primarily relied on China for its synthetic diamond supply.
Reuters reported that the gas-fired power plant, operated by SB Energy, a subsidiary of Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group, will "boost baseload power during a period of rapidly increasing demand from data centers built to support artificial intelligence applications."
On the 14th, the Trump administration released the Shipbuilding and Port Infrastructure for America (SHIPS) Act for shipyard owners, investors, and the public, a 30-page plan that includes establishing maritime prosperity zones to spur investment, reforming workforce training and education, expanding the fleet of American-built and American-flagged commercial vessels, establishing dedicated financing through the Maritime Security Trust Fund, and easing regulations. It also specifically included Japan and South Korea in the revival of the U.S. shipbuilding industry, ruling out a “monopoly” with South Korea’s $150 billion MASGA investment.
See <Trump's Nuclear Weapons Buildup: "Russia's Nondisclosure of North Korea's Nuclear Program" Rules Out of Denuclearization Negotiations>
<AP: "Flattery Welcomes"; NYT: "Praises Dictator": Lee Jae-myung's Arms Buildup: Hardline Conservative Alliance, August 26, 2025>
<Lee Jae-myung's Arms Buildup: Nuclear Submarines, US Investments Diverted to Defense Budget, Arms Race, Systemic Confrontation, October 30, 2025>