Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio
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On February 5, 2026, the New START Treaty expired. Negotiated at a different time to meet a different challenge, New START no longer serves its purpose. Our desire to reduce global nuclear threats is genuine, but we will not accept terms that harm the United States or ignore Show more
7:01 AM · Feb 6, 2026 //

This treaty, in today's current environment, has the sole purpose of limiting the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It controls the number of ballistic missile submarines, strategic bombers, and silo-based ICBMs we have. We can't test new nuclear weapons designs or validate the quality of our existing stockpile. Most importantly, it ignores the existence of China. It really makes no sense for us to make a treaty with what amounts to a failed state simply to boost Putin's ego, when our real threat, China, is free to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems and test them at will.