Overview
- With New START’s Feb. 5 lapse, the 1,550 cap on deployed strategic warheads and the treaty’s inspections and data exchanges have ended, and no successor or verified interim arrangement has been finalized.
- President Donald Trump rejects extending what he calls a badly negotiated deal and seeks a new, modernized framework that includes China, as U.S. arms‑control envoy Thomas DiNanno vows to maintain a robust, modernized deterrent.
- Moscow says it is no longer bound by the treaty, recalls a conditional offer to observe core limits for a year, and signals readiness for dialogue, while Kremlin officials dismiss talk of informal extensions.
- Washington accuses Beijing of covert nuclear explosive tests; China denies the allegation, rejects joining trilateral limits, and argues its arsenal remains far smaller than those of the U.S. and Russia.
- UN officials and analysts say the loss of verification raises risks of force expansions and miscalculation, though remaining guardrails and industrial constraints make an immediate, unconstrained arms sprint unlikely.