“President Trump announced that he would direct the Pentagon to begin testing nuclear weapons ‘on an equal basis’ with Russia and China, raising the pressure on Beijing less than an hour before he was scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for a high-stakes summit here,” the Washington Post reports.

“The announcement signaled a reversal of decades of United States nuclear policy, though Trump’s post on Truth Social included very few details about what the tests would entail. The last nuclear weapon test in the United States was held in 1992, before former president George H.W. Bush implemented a moratorium on such tests at the conclusion of the Cold War.”

“President Donald Trump heads into a historic meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping facing a delicate test: projecting strength against America’s top adversary without triggering another economic shock at home,” Politico reports.

“The high-stakes encounter, the first between the two men in more than six years, comes after months of tariff feints and escalating rhetoric that have rattled markets and strained global supply chains — and at a moment when Trump is eager to prove that his economic nationalism can still deliver concrete wins.”