US plans exit from landmark nuclear deal with Russia

The Trump administration is preparing to tell Russian leaders next week that it is planning to exit the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in part to enable the United States to counter a Chinese arms buildup in the Pacific, according to U. S. officials and foreign diplomats.

President Donald Trump has been moving toward scrapping the 3- decade- old treaty, which grew out of President Ronald Reagan’s historic meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. While the treaty was seen as effective for years, Russia has been violating it at least since 2014 in an effort to menace other nations.

But the pact has also constrained the United States from deploying new weapons to respond to China’s efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and to keep U. S. naval forces at bay. Because China was not a signatory to the treaty, it has faced no limits on developing intermediate- range nuclear missiles, which can travel thousands of miles.

The White House said no official decision had been made to leave the treaty, known as INF, which at the time of its signing was considered a critical step in defusing Cold War tensions. But in the coming weeks, Trump is expected to sign off on the decision, which would mark the first time he has scrapped an arms-control treaty, the U. S. officials said.

The question is whether the decision to leave the treaty will accelerate the increasingly Cold War- like behavior among the three superpowers: the United States, Russia and China.

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, will warn the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on a trip to Moscow early next week that the United States plans to leave the treaty, the officials said.