Trump's perplexing North Korean nukes assessment
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Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios
President Trump recently blurted out that North Korea has 57 "very powerful" nuclear weapons.
- Experts told Axios that is believable, but is most likely an undercount.
Why it matters: Nuclear arsenals are often spoken of in generalities — round numbers, increases and decreases, confidence levels. Specifics like this, especially from the very top, are rare and raise hackles.
Driving the news: Trump's comment, delivered during a press tour of White House construction projects, came shortly after he ordered military drills with South Korea be pared back.
- "Should've never allowed it to happen. They should've never allowed it," Trump said of North Korea's nuclear buildup. "If I were president, I wouldn't have allowed it. But he's got them."
By the numbers: The public estimates of Pyongyang's stockpile vary.
- The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute this summer pegged it "around 60 warheads," with "enough fissile material to produce at least 30 more."
What they're saying: The intelligence community "doesn't provide highly specific singular numeric estimates of adversary nuclear forces like this. If Trump heard a number, it was almost certainly a range," Ankit Panda at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Axios.
- "Among the major uncertainties today is how much of North Korea's weapons-useable nuclear material is actually inside useable and missile-mateable nuclear warheads."
What's next: Trump is angling for a meeting this year with North Korea's Kim Jong-un. They last rendezvoused in 2019.
