""I think the tests we're talking about right now are system tests," Wright said in an interview on Fox News' "Sunday Briefing." "These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions." Wright, whose agency is responsible for testing, added that the planned testing involves "all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.""
"The confusion over Trump's intention started minutes before he held a critical meeting in South Korea with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump took to his Truth Social platform and appeared to suggest he was preparing to discard a decades-old U.S. prohibition on testing the nation's nuclear weapons. Later that day, as he made his way back to Washington, Trump was coy on whether he really meant to say he was ordering the resumption of explosive testing of nuclear weapons - something only North Korea has undertaken this century - or calling for the testing of U.S. systems that could deliver a nuclear weapon, which is far more routine."
President Donald Trump posted that he had "instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis." Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified that planned tests are system tests and not nuclear explosions, describing them as noncritical explosions. Wright said testing will exercise all other parts of a nuclear weapon to ensure proper geometry and setup for a nuclear explosion. The president's social-media post created confusion about whether explosive nuclear testing would resume. Trump was ambiguous in later comments, saying "You'll find out very soon." The U.S. has not detonated nuclear weapons since 1992, and the U.S. signed but did not ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
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