Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Foreign Policy Trump makes it official: U.S. to quit missile treaty with Russia

The United States is suspending its participation in a key arms control agreement with Russia, and will leave the pact completely in six months, the Trump administration announced Friday.

The decision to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has raised concerns about a renewed arms race with Moscow. But it's not a surprise: The Trump administration has been signaling for months that it will walk away from the treaty, alleging that Russia has not met its obligations under the agreement for years.


"Countries must be held accountable when they break the rules," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a news conference. "Russia has jeopardized the United States’ security interests, and we can no longer be restricted by the treaty while Russia shamelessly violates it."

President Donald Trump, too, issued a warning to Russia that hinted at another concern: That China wants to take advantage of the existence of the treaty to surge ahead in its own missile capabilities.

"We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other," Trump said in a statement. "We will move forward with developing our own military response options and will work with NATO and our other allies and partners to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct."

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The landmark 1987 treaty required the United States and what was then the Soviet Union to "eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers," according to the Arms Control Association.

Trump and some of his top aides, including national security adviser John Bolton, have long expressed skepticism about international mechanisms that they feel unduly constrain the United States. Trump already has pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate change agreement.

But U.S. frustrations with the INF Treaty began well before Trump took office.

Since at least 2014, under the administration of President Barack Obama, the United States has accused Russia of violating its INF Treaty obligations, including one requiring it “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-launched cruise missile having a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, according to the ACA.

The United States — backed by its NATO allies — has said Russia must eliminate its 9M729 cruise missile system to come back into compliance. Russian officials insist the missile system does not violate the treaty, and that the United States and Europe have not properly considered Moscow's proposals to save the pact.

Trump administration officials had told Russia it had until Feb. 2 to return to compliance, saying that if that deadline is missed, the United States will begin the formal six-month withdrawal process.

Pompeo said the United States is still "hopeful" that Russia will change its posture and will continue to keep conversing with Moscow. But negotiations to this point have proved futile.

NATO on Friday put the onus on Russia to keep the pact alive.

"Unless Russia honours its INF Treaty obligations ... Russia will bear sole responsibility for the end of the Treaty," the military alliance said in a statement issued after the U.S. announcement.

A U.S. senior official said Russia would also bear any blame for a renewed international arms race once the INF treaty officially ends. The official also stressed that China and Iran — each of which possess over 1,000 of this type of missiles — are not bound by the treaty as it currently stands.

“If there is an arms race, it is Russia that is starting it,” the senior administration official said. “We reject the assertion that it is the United States ... opening the door to an arms race.”

Senior administration officials added that the U.S. was not in a position to immediately deploy missiles. “It will take us time to make decisions about what kind of capability we will deploy and test. We are some time away from a flight test, or acquisition decision,” the officials added.

The Pentagon is poised to develop its own missiles with ranges prohibited by the treaty if Russia does not come back into compliance, officials have said.

"If and when we suspend our obligations in February, our defense counterparts will move ahead with the R&D and the work of fielding systems that will continue to protect Americans abroad and Americans at home,” Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson, who has been trying unsuccessfully to negotiate with the Russians to save the treaty, told reporters last week.

"That'll start after Feb. 2 if Russia is not compliant,” she added.

Republican defense hawks on Capitol Hill cheered on the withdrawal announcement. Many GOP lawmakers have long criticized U.S. compliance with the pact's limitations while, they say, Russian violated them.

"There is no reason to handcuff ourselves as Russia and other countries advance their weapons system at will," said Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

But top Democrats on Capitol Hill slammed Trump's decision, warning that scrapping the treaty will spur a renewed arms race with Russia and divide NATO. Some Democrats also see the INF withdrawal as a sign Trump may not renew the New START treaty, a seminal nuclear arms reduction agreement set to expire in 2021.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, torched the move as "a tragedy that makes the world less safe."

"President Trump and his war cabinet have yet again decided that America should go it alone, this time, by paving the way for a dangerous arms race, with costly new weapons," Markey said. "In doing so, they undercut our allies ... and are playing squarely into Russia’s hands, giving it the perfect excuse to justify its well-documented noncompliance with the treaty."

Connor O'Brien contributed to this report.