Trump official signals no US nuclear test blasts planned for now

Sam Kim, Bloomberg News on Nov 2, 2025

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U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he expects U.S. nuclear-weapons testing sought by President Donald Trump to stop short of actual atomic bomb explosions for now.

“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests,” Duffy said on Fox News’ "The Sunday Briefing." “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”

Such tests involve “all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion,” he said.

Trump said last week that he’s instructing the Pentagon to start testing U.S. nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” in response to “other countries’ testing programs.” Russia has recently announced trials of a nuclear-powered underwater drone and nuclear-capable cruise missile.

Asked whether residents near the U.S. military’s nuclear testing site in Nevada “should expect to see a mushroom cloud at some point,” Wright said, “No, no worries about that.”

The U.S. hasn’t tested the explosion of a nuclear weapon since 1992, when President George H.W. Bush ordered a moratorium.

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