Moscow: US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia has drawn sharp criticism from one of the men who signed it — Mikhail Gorbachev, who called the decision reckless and not the work of "a great mind".

In announcing that he would withdraw from the treaty, Trump cited Russian violations of the pact, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was signed in Washington in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev.

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in 2016. Credit:AP

Gorbachev, who is now 87 years old, cast Trump's decision as a threat to peace.

"Under no circumstances should we tear up old disarmament agreements," he said. "Is it really that hard to understand that rejecting these agreements is, as the people say, not the work of a great mind."