There were 3,750 nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile as of September 2020 the State Department and National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday, down more than 250 since the final year of the Obama administration.
State and the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency disclosed the count after Bonnie Jenkins, under secretary for arms control and international security, spoke at a United Nations First Committee side event in New York. Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), joined Jenkins at the event.
Data released by state and NNSA Tuesday afternoon provided a stockpile count that dates back to 1962 and includes every year between then and 2020. While the overall count has fallen overall since 2016, when there were 4,018 warheads in the stockpile, the figure drifted up and down throughout the Trump administration.
“Today, as an act of good faith, and a tangible, public demonstration of the U.S. commitment to transparency, we will present data which documents our own record of continued progress toward the achievement of the goals of the” Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Jenkins said in prepared remarks. “As we, along with the United Kingdom and France, demonstrate transparency about our nuclear stockpiles, we call on other states with nuclear weapons to do likewise”