Trump: America in "nuclear disarmament" negotiations with Russia and China

America and Russia each have more than 4000 warheads. Trump says China will catch up within five years.

US President Donald Trump has announced that the US is in talks with Russia and China about nuclear disarmament.

Trump said Thursday that China — which lags behind the U.S. and Russia in terms of warheads — is racing to catch up. During an interview with Newsmax, he added that Washington is discussing with its counterparts a path to "nuclear disarmament".

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At the bottom of the list, China's nuclear stockpile is smaller, with about 620 warheads, compared to the US and Russia, which each have more than 4,000 warheads, but Trump said he thinks China will "catch up" within the next five years.

"It's all a shame because I would like to do nuclear disarmament if possible," Trump said. We're actually talking to Russia about that, and we're talking to China about denuclearization.

He noted that China is unwilling to disarm, but said that negotiations are ongoing. Newsmax reported that Trump had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the matter, but no further details about the talks with Russia or China were disclosed.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, with the United States trailing far behind.

The two countries together possess an estimated 86 percent of the world's total nuclear weapons.

According to Cipri, China has the third largest nuclear arsenal and has increased it to 620 warheads in the past year.

Trump's claims came shortly after the expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, an arms control agreement between the United States and Russia to limit their nuclear arsenals.

A month after the treaty expired, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the forward deterrence plan, as Russia's nuclear weapons offensive during the war with Ukraine has alarmed Europe.

Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans told Al Jazeera that the world's interest in the threat of nuclear weapons has waned.

"The world ... has grown alarmingly complacent about the dangers of nuclear war, as all major nuclear arms control agreements are dead, dying or used to support life and long-term taboos against threat or erosion," he said.