Trump is formally scrapping a Reagan-era nuclear arms treaty with Russia

The U.S. is formally scrapping the INF treaty

(Image credit: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images)

published 1 February 2019

On Friday, the Trump administration will follow through with its threat to withdraw from yet another treaty, this one the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, The Associated Press reports. Some arms analysts are concerned that withdrawing from the treaty, the first to ban an entire class of weapons, will precipitate a new arms race. The U.S. says Russia is already out of compliance with the agreement, Russia denies that, and discussions between Washington and Moscow to salvage the pact through a compliance deal have come up short.

Whenever the Trump administration gives its formal notice of withdrawal, the two sides will have another six months to negotiate before the treaty ceases. But there are few signs either side will change its position in that period. On Thursday, America's NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison argued that this is on Russia, which "consistently refuses to acknowledge its violation and continues to push disinformation and false narratives regarding its illegal missile." There is no treaty or security, she said, "when only one party respects an arms control treaty while the other side flaunts it."

Nuclear arms experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace say that while Russia's violations of the INF treaty are serious, "leaving the INF treaty will unleash a new missile competition between the United States and Russia." Former President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF in 1987, prohibiting ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of 310 to 3,400 miles.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.