President Trump is shifting from discussion of the long-lasting competition among the world’s biggest economies and nuclear powers.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

President Trump is shifting from discussion of the long-lasting competition among the world’s biggest economies and nuclear powers.

President Trump and one of his top cabinet officials are sending mixed messages on how the U.S. government is handling the most destructive weapons in the world.

President Trump explained the order by saying other, unnamed nations were testing their own nuclear weapons, even though no country has tested since 2017.

The president’s ambiguity on nuclear testing is worrisome not only because America’s public can’t know what he means, but because America’s adversaries don’t.

Without a plan for what comes next, the United States is not only hastening its own decline but also forcing the world into a new era of disorder.