The Final U.S.-Russia Nuclear Weapons Pact Expires

Summary

WSJ What’s News – Episode Summary

Episode: The Final U.S.-Russia Nuclear Weapons Pact Expires

Date: February 5, 2026
Host: Luke Vargas
Key Guests: Michael Gordon (National Security Correspondent), David Uberti (Reporter), Alex Frankos (Finance Editor)

---

Overview of Episode Theme

This episode centers on the expiration of “New START,” the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, and the implications it could have for global security. It also covers major political debates in Washington over health care and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding, examines the continuing decline in American manufacturing despite decades of political focus, and discusses SpaceX’s push for fast-track inclusion in major stock indexes following its anticipated IPO.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Expiration of the U.S.-Russia Nuclear Weapons Pact (New START)

• What Happened: The last treaty limiting the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia expired with no replacement in place, raising widespread fears of a renewed nuclear arms race.
  • Michael Gordon (01:24): “This is a very significant milestone. Since the early 1970s, there has been one sort of strategic arms treaty or another which has constrained the Russian and American long range nuclear arsenals.”
• Why It Expired: The Trump administration did not respond to Russia’s offer for an informal extension or replacement.
  • Michael Gordon (01:52): “President Trump’s been on both sides of the issue…More recently, the administration has signaled that they'll address this issue on their own timeline. So that's created a lot of uncertainty…”
• What the Treaty Did:
  • Capped deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 per country.
  • Provided for mutual inspections and data transparency.
  • Played a role in ending the Cold War nuclear standoff.
  • Luke Vargas (02:42): “The treaty had capped the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads for each party to 1,550 and established some transparency…including data transfer notifications and on site inspections.”
• Russia’s Response: Russia issued a statement promising to act responsibly following the treaty’s expiry.

2. Stalled Senate Negotiations Over Health Care and DHS Funding

• Affordable Care Act Subsidies: Bipartisan Senate negotiations to renew expired subsidies failed, potentially leading to higher insurance premiums for 20 million Americans (02:42–03:15).
• DHS Funding Stalemate:
  • Democrats want stricter oversight and independent investigations.
    • Dick Durbin (03:47): “…Why shouldn’t investigations be done by an independent source for their own credibility?...These are the fundamentals of constitutional conduct.”
  • Republicans demand an end to “sanctuary cities.”
    • Josh Hawley (04:14): “This is about trying to hamstring the entire agency because that’s what Democrats want. That’s fine. I get it. That’s their position. That’s fine. I think it’s a good faith position. I just totally disagree…”
  • Threat of DHS Shutdown: Senate Majority Leader John Thune might propose another stopgap bill if talks fail, but Democrats threaten to block it unless they see progress.

3. Trump Administration Moves to Strip Civil Service Protections (04:30)

• New Rule: 50,000 workers subject to reclassification, making it easier to dismiss senior career officials.
• Administration Argument: Prevent sabotage and better align workers with administration priorities.
• Opposition: Labor unions fear it’s a pretext to push out workers with conflicting political views.

4. Decline in U.S. Manufacturing Despite Policy Efforts

• Ongoing Job Losses: Approximately 200,000 manufacturing jobs lost since 2023.
  • David Uberti (05:41): “…Since President Trump unveiled his so-called Liberation Day tariffs last April, there have been eight straight months of job declines in the manufacturing sector.”
• Tariffs’ Mixed Effects:
  • Beneficial for U.S. aluminum and steel producers.
  • Harmful for downstream manufacturers needing to import materials, raising their costs and compressing margins.
  • David Uberti (06:51): “…If you own an aluminum or steel plant, you love tariffs on aluminum or steel…But if you’re the various types of suppliers…then your costs are going up, and that’s actually compressing your margins in many cases and making you scramble for supplies.”
• Case Studies:
  • Insteel (N.C.): Forced to import steel due to lack of U.S.-made supply; growth hindered.
  • NN Inc. (N.C.): Higher materials cost leads to less investment in U.S. manufacturing.
• Macro Challenges:
  • Global Competition: China’s dominance in manufacturing and global trade barriers haven’t stemmed competition or import pressure.
  • Jobless Growth: Companies automate and modernize, increasing output with fewer workers.
    • David Uberti (08:24): “There is sort of a difference between manufacturing output and manufacturing employment…It’s probable that a lot of the companies that are making investments will do so…to be able to pump out more stuff with fewer people.”
• Insight: Even as policies focus on reviving manufacturing, the combination of global trade pressures and technological advances undermines the prospect of returning to previous employment highs.

5. SpaceX Pushes for Early Inclusion in Major Stock Indexes

• Context: Typically, companies wait months or a year post-IPO to enter indexes like the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100.
• Recent Developments: Nasdaq is considering allowing especially large companies (such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic) immediate inclusion within 15 trading days.
  • Alex Frankos (11:38): “The sooner you can get into these indexes, the sooner you have this wall of money coming at your stock…index funds, which a lot of our listeners are probably invested in, automatically buy whatever is in the index.”
• Why It Matters:
  • Rapid index inclusion ensures steady stock demand and price stability during the post-IPO phase.
  • Indexes wary because early inclusion can expose funds and investors to more nascent, riskier businesses.
    • Alex Frankos (12:23): “Indexes have these rules for a reason…because they're concerned that they don't want something come in and then tank and then people be like, why did you put that in the index?”

6. Business Headlines Roundup (12:51–13:43)

• Maersk: Cutting 1,000 jobs, forecasts lower earnings.
• Shell: $3.5B share buyback ongoing despite weak prices.
• Baidu: Launches its first-ever $5B buyback.
• ArcelorMittal: Sees EU protection from Chinese competition as a market opportunity; shares up 3%.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the end of arms control:
  • Michael Gordon (01:24): “This is a very significant milestone…There has been one sort of strategic arms treaty or another which has constrained the Russian and American long-range nuclear arsenals.”
  • Luke Vargas (02:42): “The expiration of New START marks an end to the arms control that helped to bring an end to the Cold War.”
• On political gridlock:
  • Dick Durbin (03:47): “Why shouldn’t investigations be done by an independent source for their own credibility?...These are the fundamentals of constitutional conduct.”
  • Josh Hawley (04:14): “This is about trying to hamstring the entire agency because that’s what Democrats want…That’s fine. I just totally disagree with it and I’m not gonna help them do it.”
• On U.S. manufacturing’s decline:
  • David Uberti (05:41): “…There have been eight straight months of job declines in the manufacturing sector.”
  • David Uberti (08:24): “There is sort of a difference between manufacturing output and manufacturing employment…companies…are actually taking advantage of some…tax breaks for new investment…to be able to pump out more stuff with fewer people.”
• On SpaceX’s index push:
  • Alex Frankos (11:38): “The sooner you can get into these indexes, the sooner you have this wall of money coming at your stock.”
  • Alex Frankos (12:23): “Indexes have these rules for a reason…because they're concerned that they don't want something come in and then tank…”

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:30–02:42: Expiry of New START nuclear treaty and its global implications
• 03:15–04:30: Senate gridlock on ACA subsidies and DHS funding
• 04:30–05:41: Trump administration moves to reclassify civil service protections
• 05:41–09:55: Analysis of U.S. manufacturing’s decline – policy, tariffs, global competition, automation
• 10:57–12:51: SpaceX and IPO index inclusion debate
• 12:51–13:43: Business headlines (Maersk, Shell, Baidu, ArcelorMittal)

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers incisive coverage of the expiration of the U.S.-Russia New START treaty, mapping its strategic consequences while tying in the turbulence of domestic policy battles. It provides a ground-level and macroeconomic insight into why American manufacturing jobs keep vanishing, despite high-profile political attention and efforts. The segment on SpaceX highlights how Wall Street’s rules are being tested by high-profile, mega-cap IPOs. The discussion remains brisk, balanced, and tightly focused on the news that moves markets and policy debates.

Transcript

[Indeed Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate. C According to Indeed data, Sponsored jobs have four times more applicants than non sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply.

[Luke Vargas]

The end of an era as the US And Russia's final nuclear weapons pact expires, plus a Democratic push to curb ISIS powers and fund DHS meets, stiff Republican opposition in Congress and why Washington's best efforts are failing to stop the decline of American manufacturing.

[David Uberti]

Something like 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared across the country since 2023, and since President Trump unveiled his so called Liberation Day tar last April, there have been eight straight months of job declines in the manufacturing sector.

[Luke Vargas]

It's Thursday, February 5th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of what's news, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The last treaty controlling nuclear weapons between the US And Russia has expired, raising fears of a new arms race.

[Michael Gordon]

This is a very significant milestone. Since the early 1970s, there has been one sort of strategic arms treaty or another which has constrained the Russian and American long range nuclear arsenals.

[Luke Vargas]

That's Journal National Security correspondent Michael Gordon. He says that the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New start, ended overnight because the Trump administration never responded to Russia's proposal to replace it.

[Michael Gordon]

The agreement can't legally be extended again, but the issue on the table is a Russian proposal to informally observe the ceilings in the treaty on warheads and missiles and bombers as a kind of a holding action for a year, pending a decision on where to go next. But over the last few months, President Trump's been on both sides of the issue. He initially said that he was concerned about not having any limits on nuclear weapons, and he thought Putin's proposal was a good idea. More recently, the administration has signaled that they'll address this issue on their own timeline. So that's created a lot of uncertainty, at least among strategic weapons experts, not only about what the future would hold, but about what the Trump administration has in mind because there hasn't been a vision laid out so far. In his second term, the expiration of.

[Luke Vargas]

New Start marks an end to the arms control that helped to bring an end to the Cold War. The treaty had capped the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads for each party to 1,550 and established some transparency between Moscow and Washington, including data transfer notifications and on site inspections. Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement in anticipation of the treaty expiring, saying that Moscow intends to act responsibly and in a balanced manner. Senate negotiations to renew expired Affordable Care act subsidies have collapsed, leaving approximately 20 million Americans facing higher insurance premiums. Both parties failed to bridge divides over abortion coverage and plan structures despite bipartisan attempts to reach a middle ground ahead of the midterm elections. Meanwhile, a Senate standoff over funding for the Department of Homeland Security is intensifying, with lawmakers warning that it's unlikely they'll reach a deal in just over a week. Democrats like Illinois's Dick Durbin are demanding stricter oversight.

[Dick Durbin]

Why shouldn't investigations be done by an independent source for their own credibility? Why shouldn't these people be taking the mask off and putting video cameras on? These are the fundamentals of constitutional conduct. I don't think you compromise on some of them.

[Luke Vargas]

While Republicans have signaled openness to some ideas, they've rejected others and introduced their own demands, such as an end to so called sanctuary cities. Here's Missouri's Josh Hawley this has nothing.

[Josh Hawley]

To do with trying to get accountability for what's recently happened with discrete incidents in Minnesota. This is about trying to hamstring the entire agency because that's what Democrats want. Now listen, that's fine. I get it. That's their position. That's fine. I think it's a good faith position. I just totally disagree with it and I'm not gonna help them do it.

[Luke Vargas]

Should talks fail, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said he'd consider another stopgap funding bill for dhs, possibly for the rest of the fiscal year. But Democrats have said they're unlikely to provide the votes for any extension unless negotiations make real progress. And the Trump administration is moving to strip civil service protections from some 50,000 federal workers whose work focus is on executing the administration's policies. The reclassification would make it easier to fire career officials in senior positions, with the Office of Personnel Management saying it aims to prevent officials from sabotage or trying to find ways to thwart the objectives of the administration. Labor unions and advocacy groups warn that the new rules are a pretext to the government ousting workers whose political views aren't in line with the president. Can anyone stop the decline in American manufacturing? Successive US Presidents have tried to bring back a manufacturing golden age, but as the Journal's David Uberti reports, employment indicators continue to point in the opposite direction. Dave, great to chat again. What are we seeing in the data?

[David Uberti]

The data shows us that something like 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared across the country since 2023. And since President Trump unveiled his so called lib Immigration Day tariffs last April, there have been eight straight months of job declines in the manufacturing sector. Other indicators suggest factory activity has contracted for much of the last two years and the actual investment that goes into manufacturing construction has actually fallen each of the first nine months that Trump has been in office. Now, all this is notable because as you said, we're approaching something like a decade of industrial policies across administrations. We actually had tariffs and Trump won. We had tariffs and massive spending on green energy and chips in Biden and then in Trump 2, while he has pulled back some of that spending on green energy, he has ramped up tariffs to levels we have not seen in decades, along with other pro manufacturing policies as well. And where has left us is basically fewer people in America working in manufacturing than at any point since the end of the pandemic.

[Luke Vargas]

You spoke to a number of manufacturers for this story. I'm curious where the disconnect here is between industrial policy and sort of outcomes. What are the roadblocks folks are contending with?

[David Uberti]

The impacts of tariffs are very disparate across the manufacturing sector. If you own an aluminum or steel plant, you love tariffs on aluminum or steel because it boosts prices for aluminum and steel. But if you're the various types of suppliers for automakers or infrastructure firms or whatnot that use those types of materials in the various types of widgets or equipment that you actually produce and you need to import some of those materials, then your costs are going up and that's actually compressing your margins in many cases and making you scramble for supplies. I spoke with a number of businesses who are grappling with some of these impacts, two of which are based in North Carolina, one of which was called Insteel, they have been forced to import more steel because of tariffs. There's actually a dearth of US Made steel that they need to produce. The wire that's used to reinforce concrete in highways and bridges, that's holding back some of their ability to grow. At the same time, another auto parts manufacturer I spoke with called nn, they have said that the increased costs that have stemmed in part because of tariffs and steel and aluminum have compressed their margins and left them with less money to actually invest in new manufacturing in the US and elsewhere. So if you sort of add that up and multiply that across the hundreds if not thousands of different manufacturers in the sector, you see some pressure, at least in the short term, from these import taxes.

[Luke Vargas]

All right, so those are some of the challenges, Dave, on the ground. And yet I suspect if we look big picture, we might get some clearer answers about why it's proving so difficult to bring back a golden age of American manufacturing.

[David Uberti]

Well, I'd say there's two macro factors at play. First and foremost is China and the growth of China into a manufacturing powerhouse. The series of trade wars the Trump administration has launched either on China or related to various trade imbalances around the world. They have not stemmed the tide of existence. Exports from countries such as China or other countries in south and Southeast Asia. They are still pumping out record numbers of exports despite some of these trade barriers. And that's putting downward pressure on prices for some of the products that US Manufacturers are trying to sell abroad. That's number one. Number two is there is sort of a difference between manufacturing output and manufacturing employment. Those things are overlapped, but the Venn diagram is not a circle. And while President Trump has staked a lot of his economic agenda on bringing manufacturing job jobs back, hopefully revitalizing some of the industrial heartland of the country, it's probable that a lot of the companies that are making investments in manufacturing right now will do so in ways that just use fewer workers. The advancements made in software, AI and robotics over the last couple of years have been immense. And a lot of the companies that we are speaking to and say that they are actually taking advantage of some of the recent tax breaks for new investment in businesses to become more efficient, basically to be able to pump out more stuff with fewer people. And over the course of time, that will have a downward impact on manufacturing employment, even as output might stay stagnant, if not go up.

[Luke Vargas]

That was the Journal's David Hubert Team. Dave, appreciate you stopping by. Thank you so much for the update.

[David Uberti]

Thanks for having me.

[Luke Vargas]

Coming up, the day's top business stories as SpaceX angles to get an early invite to Wall Street's most exclusive indexes. That and more after the break.

[Christopher Mimms]

Hi, I'm Christopher Mimms. And I'm Tim Higgins. We're the hosts of the Wall Street Journal's Bold Names podcast. On our show, we bring the bold name companies featured in the pages of the Wall Street Journal to life through real conversations with the people that lead them. If you're looking for more news and insights that bring you inside the C Suite, consider becoming a subscriber to the Wall street journal. Visit subscribe.WSJ.com Boldnames to subscribe now.

[Luke Vargas]

Not content to Simply IPO this year, we're exclusively reporting that SpaceX is pushing for an early inclusion in indexes like the S&P 500 or NASDAQ 100 after its list. Typically, companies have to wait several months to a year to prove their post IPO stability and liquidity in order to enter those indexes. This week, the Nasdaq shared proposals to update how it lets companies into the NASDAQ 100, including one that would allow especially large companies to join within 15 trading days at their current valuations. SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic would all qualify. So why the rush? I asked Journal Finance editor Alex Frankos.

[Alex Frankos]

The sooner you can get into these indexes, the sooner you have this wall of money coming at your stock. Basically, these index funds, which a lot of our listeners are probably invested in, automatically buy whatever is in the index. And an IPO is always an uncertain process. You're putting a new company on the stock market, you don't know how people are going to react. There's also the issue that a lot of insiders in the company, people who already own shares, are going to sell their shares after the lockup period expires. So if you have the index fund already buying your shares, that's probably going to create some demand, push up the stock price, keep things stable. So it's a way to make the.

[Luke Vargas]

IPO a success, right? That argument makes sense, Alex, but I imagine there's probably reasons why the indexes might not want to go along with this.

[Alex Frankos]

Indexes have these rules for a reason, because it takes a while for investors to settle on what the price should be and what direction it's going. And it's an untested company. There are rules about profitability and size and all sorts of things because they're concerned that they don't want something come in and then tank and then people be like, why did you put that in the index? You know, if it turns out that there was something wrong. So time often helps prove out that a company is what it says it is.

[Luke Vargas]

And let's spin through some headlines coming across markets this morning, starting with Danish shipping giant Maersk, which is cutting a thousand jobs to slash costs as it forecasts a sharp drop in earnings. Oil major Shell is keeping the buyback train rolling, returning $3.5 billion to shareholders in spite of weaker prices. Chinese search engine Baidu, meanwhile, is getting into the buyback game for the first time to the tune of $5 billion. And Europe's largest steelmaker, Arsalor Mittal, said that EU efforts to protect the industry from Chinese competition should help it to capture market share in the coming years. Its stock is up today more than 3%. And that's it for what's news for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bok. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show.

[Michael Gordon]

Until then, thanks for listening.