Washington, Oct. 23 (IANS): US President Donald Trump has warned of bolstering the American nuclear arsenal to put pressure on Russia and China. Moscow has retaliated that it will respond in kind if the US develops more weapons, the BBC reported.
Hinting at Russia's breach of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, Trump said the US would build up its arsenal "until people come to their senses".
"It's a threat to whoever you want to include China and it includes Russia and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game...," the President told the media.
"(Russia has) not adhered to the spirit of that agreement or to the agreement itself," Trump repeated on Monday about the Cold War-era treaty that banned medium-range missiles.
Russia has already denied this. INF was aimed at reducing the perceived Soviet threat to European nations.
Moscow told US National Security Adviser John Bolton the US plan to quit the deal would be a "serious blow" to the non-proliferation regime.
Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev in Moscow said the Kremlin was "ready" to work with the US to remove "mutual" grievances over the INF.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Scrapping the treaty forces Russia to take steps for its own security."
Trump says US needs to build border wall fast
US President Donald Trump said that the country needs to build a wall fast to protect its borders from Central American migrants.
During a "Make America Great Again" rally in Houston on Monday, Trump told a crowd of nearly 180,000 that the caravan of migrants heading towards the US is "assault on our country" and that "we need a wall built fast", reports Xinhua news agency.
Earlier on Monday, Trump said Washington will begin cutting off or reducing aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, citing migrant caravans heading to the US border.
Trump's Houston rally is his latest campaign appearance leading to the mid-term elections set on November 6.
He will go to Wisconsin, North Carolina and Illinois to galvanise more supporter for the Republicans.
Over the weekend, thousands of migrants, mostly from Honduras, have swarmed into Mexico after passing the Guatemalan border.
The media reported that Mexican police watched the procession with vigilance but did not disturb the migrants' journey.
Official data showed that the Trump administration has sharply slashed aid to the three countries in Central America, projecting some 40 per cent plunge in aid in the 2019 financial year compared with that of 2016.
