Donald Trump has promised a new era of American nuclear dominance with an expanded arsenal of atomic weapons in his first comments on the subject since taking office.

In an interview with Reuters he said he wanted to see a world where nobody had nuclear weapons but until then the US should be “at the top of the pack”.

His words risk a return to an arms race that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall but are in keeping with a manifesto built on the idea that the US is not the global force it once was.