New Delhi: US President Donald Trump claimed that Pakistan was among a slew of countries that are “testing nuclear weapons,” while arguing that he didn’t want the US to be the only country to not do so.His remarks were made public four days after he first announced on his social media platform, Truth Social that he was ordering the resumption of nuclear testing “on an equal basis” with other countries, just minutes before he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.“No, we’re gonna test, because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing,” he said on an interview to CBS Morning broadcast on Sunday. He also included Russia and China among countries who had also done testing.During the CBS interview, the anchor repeatedly asked Trump to clarify whether he was announcing a resumption of US nuclear detonations after more than three decades.Pressed on whether the United States was resuming nuclear detonations, Trump confirmed, “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.”When the interviewer countered that only North Korea was known to have tested nuclear weapons recently, Trump insisted, “Russia’s testing nuclear weapons… and China’s testing ’em too. You just don’t know about it… Pakistan’s been testing.”He further claimed that such testing often occurred underground, out of public view. “They test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test and we don’t test. We have to test,” he said.As the interviewer pointed out that experts maintain US weapons do not require live testing, Trump responded, “According to me. We have the best, and I was the one that renovated them and built them during a four-year period… If we have ’em, we have to test ’em, otherwise you don’t really know how they’re gonna work.”There has been no response from either India or Pakistan on Trump’s latest assertion that Islamabad has been testing nuclear weapons.Meanwhile, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News on Sunday that the planned nuclear tests would not involve nuclear explosions.“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are systems tests,” Wright said. “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”The United States has maintained a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing since 1992.The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that the United States has a stockpile of about 3,700 warheads, while Russia holds around 4,309. China is believed to possess roughly 600 nuclear warheads, though it is assessed to have the fastest-growing arsenal among the nine nuclear-armed states, according to the US-based non-profit.According to the Stockholm-based SIPRI, Pakistan is estimated to have 170 stored nuclear warheads as of January 2025, around ten fewer than India.In the CBS interview, Trump also repeated his claim that India and Pakistan had stopped a “nuclear war” following a threat from the United States to impose massive tariffs.“It did work with India, and it did work with Pakistan, and it did work with 60% of those countries. I can tell you, if it wasn’t for tariffs and trade, I wouldn’t have been able to make the deals,” he said.He went on to claim that “India does a lotta business with us. They were going to war. They were gonna have a nuclear war with Pakistan.” According to Trump, “The prime minister of Pakistan stood up the other day and he said, ‘If Donald Trump didn’t get involved, many millions of people would be dead right now.’ That was a bad war he was ready to start.”Trump added, “Shot down airplanes all over the place. That really – that was gonna be a bad war. And I told both of them, I said, ‘If you guys don’t work out a deal fast, you’re not gonna do any business with the United States.’ And they do a lotta business with the United States. And they were both great leaders, and they worked out a deal, and they stopped the war. That would’ve been a bad war. It would’ve been a nuclear war.”India has consistently disputed Trump’s assertion that he intervened to end hostilities between India and Pakistan. The four days of clashes followed Indian strikes on Pakistani territory after the Pahalgam terror attack, which had led to retaliatory action and a brief exchange of fire. India has maintained that it was a request from the Pakistan military that led to the ceasefire.Despite this, Trump has repeated the claim more than fifty times in public. Pakistan, which has endorsed his version of events, even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.