Biden Seeks to Work on Nuclear Deal with China and Russia

U.S. President Joe Biden called on China and Russia to negotiate a new nuclear arms treaty with the United States, as the U.N. meets to review global non-proliferation efforts.

Biden made the remarks prior to the opening of the tenth U.N. Review on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), a 1970 treaty aimed at reducing nuclear weapons globally. The review, which happens once every five years, was scheduled for 2020, but was delayed due to COVID-19 and its associated woes.

“I’ve worked on arms control from the earliest days of my career, and the health of the NPT has always rested on meaningful, reciprocal arms limits between the United States and Russian Federation,” a prepared statement attributed to Biden said.

“Even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to work together to uphold our shared responsibility to ensure strategic stability.”

Russia and the United States extended their New START treaty in February, which will extend caps on the number of strategic nuclear warheads that either nation will deploy and limits the number of land, sea, and air units capable of delivering them until 2026.

The United States and Russia have in the past been able to reach agreements on nuclear arms control measures, regardless of wider political disagreements. Biden suggested that Russia would need to demonstrate it actually intended to abide by the terms of the treaty, however, given its invasion of Ukraine five months ago.

“My Administration is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026,” Biden said. “But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith.”

“Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of

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