President Trump will announce as early as Friday that he will undo restrictions on using or acquiring land mines enacted by former President Barack Obama in 2014, two U.S. officials tell Reuters. Obama had moved to stop all U.S. production and acquisition of anti-personnel mines, including to replace degraded stockpiles. The U.S. is not among the more than 160 signatories to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, but it adheres to many of its provisions and prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines outside of the Korean peninsula, Reuters says.
"The resumption of the use of anti-personnel land mines and continued stockpiling and production of these indiscriminate weapons is militarily unnecessary and dangerous," said Daryl Kimball at the Arms Control Association. The U.S. hasn't used land mines since a single anti-personnel mine in Afghanistan in 2002, Kimball's group says, and the last time the U.S. military used mines in any significant way was in the 1991 Gulf War.
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