FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: U.S. MAYORS CALL FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
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Ellen Thomas
Jun 10, 2026, 7:59:50 AMJun 10
to NucNews
For immediate release: June 8, 2026
Contact: Jackie Cabasso, Mayors for Peace North American Coordinator
(510) 306-0119; ws...@earthlink.net
U.S. Conference of Mayors Urges the United States to Lead a Global Effort
to Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race
Long Beach, California – In a time of growing tensions among nuclear-armed states, at the close of its 94th Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California, on June 7, 2026, the final business plenary of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) unanimously adopted a bold new resolution, “Urging the United States to Lead a Global Effort to Halt and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race.”
The USCM is the official nonpartisan association of more than 1,500 American cities with populations over 30,000. Resolutions adopted at its annual meetings become USCM official policy that guide the organization’s advocacy efforts. This is the twenty-first consecutive year the USCM has adopted resolutions submitted on behalf of U.S. members of Mayors for Peace.
The new resolutions opens with a stark reminder that “more than 12,000 nuclear weapons – over 85% of them held by the United States and the Russian Federation – remain in the global nuclear arsenal and continue to pose an intolerable risk to humanity” and that “the last remaining U.S. – Russian arms control agreement, New START, expired on February 5, 2026, with no negotiations for a follow-on agreement underway, and for the first time in 50 years, there are no limits on the number of U.S. and Russian deployed nuclear weapons.”
President Trump’s proposed 2027 budget requests a 42 percent increase in military spending, bringing the total U.S. war budget to an unprecedented $1.5 Trillion while proposing significant funding cuts to numerous programs that have long been critical for American cities. The resolution notes that “the President’s proposed 2027 budget request seeks to raise spending on U.S. nuclear weapons by 12 percent to maintain and modernize its nuclear triad, expanding on previous administrations’ plans to develop new ballistic missile submarines, new silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, a new nuclear cruise missile, a modified gravity bomb, a new stealthy long-range strike bomber, and accompanying warheads for each delivery system, with modified or newly manufactured plutonium triggers.”
The resolution also states: ‘[T]he qualitative and quantitative nuclear modernization programs underway in the U.S., Russia, China, France, and the UK violate their [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] Article VI disarmament obligation, in force since 1970.”
Mayor Lacey Beaty, of Beaverton, Oregon, the lead sponsor of this year’s resolution, commented: “As a combat veteran, I understand that war is paid for in human lives, family sacrifice, and community resources. Mayors see those costs up close: in our veterans, in our families, in our housing needs, in our budgets. This resolution says we need diplomacy, accountability, and investment in our people, not weapons.”
Mayor Adena Ishii of Berkeley, California, a co-sponsor of the resolution, declared: “Berkeley has long stood as a Nuclear Free Zone, and I am proud to represent a city that unequivocally opposes the advancement of nuclear weapons. There are no positive outcomes from the development or use of these weapons; only mass destruction and devastation. At a time when conflicts are escalating around the world, I join mayors across the country in calling on our federal government to pursue peaceful solutions and end our investment in nuclear weapons.”
Jackie Cabasso, Mayors for Peace North American Coordinator, added, “The wars against Ukraine and Iran, in which nuclear-armed states are illegally attacking non-nuclear weapon states, aggravate a gravely deteriorating global security situation. This new resolution by America’s mayors is a clarion call for sanity.”
As recognized in the resolution: “[A] statement by mayors from across Europe and the United States adopted during the May 2026 Pact of Free Cities Summit in Bratislava emphasized that “[C]ities are not only administrative entities, but democratic communities capable of protecting freedom, solidarity, and the rule of law when these values come under pressure.”
Reflecting the urgency of the current moment, the Conference “calls on the Administration…. to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war, move the world back from the nuclear brink, and halt and reverse a new global nuclear arms race,” and “to engage in good faith negotiations with the other eight nuclear armed states, in particular Russia and China, to halt any further buildup of nuclear arsenals and to verifiably reduce and eliminate nuclear arsenals according to negotiated timetables; seek the renunciation by all nuclear-armed states of the option of using nuclear weapons first; implement effective checks and balances on the Commander in Chief’s sole authority to order the use of U.S. nuclear weapons; end the Cold War-era ‘hair-trigger alert posture; end plans to produce and deploy new nuclear warheads and delivery systems; and maintain the de facto global moratorium on nuclear explosive testing.”
The Conference also “urges Congress to pass H. RES. 317, ‘Urging the United States to lead the world back from the brink of nuclear war and halt and reverse the nuclear arms race’ and S. RES. 323, ‘Urging the United States to lead a global effort to halt and reverse the nuclear arms race,’ which call for the above measures.”
The Conference “calls on its members to take action at the municipal level to raise public awareness about the growing dangers of nuclear war, the humanitarian and fiscal impacts of nuclear weapons, and the urgent need for good faith U.S. leadership in negotiating the global elimination of nuclear weapons” and “invites all of its members to join Mayors for Peace to help the organization reach its membership goal of 10,000 cities.”
Finally, the Conference “calls on the Administration and Congress to carefully weigh the immense costs of proposed nuclear modernization against the urgent domestic needs of American cities, and to ensure that finite federal resources are prioritized to adequately support vital municipal assistance programs, such as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships.”
Mayors for Peace, led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is working for a world without nuclear weapons, safe and resilient cities, and a culture of peace, in which peace is a priority for every individual. As of June 1, 2026, the organization had grown to 8,579 cities in 166 countries and territories, with 245 U.S. members.
The 2026 USCM Mayors for Peace resolution was sponsored by Mayor Lacey Beaty, of Beaverton, Oregon, and cosponsored by Mayor Larry Agran, of Irvine, California, Mayor Martha Guerrero, of West Sacramento, California, Mayor Adena Ishii, of Berkeley, California, Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, of Burnsville, Minnesota, Mayor Chris Koos, of Normal, Illinois, and Mayor Barbara Lee, of Oakland, California.
Click here for the official full text of the resolution. (In the future, click here, go to 94th Annual Meeting, (Long Beach 2026), select International Affairs Committee)
Click here for this press release.
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"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation,655-13th Street, Oakland, CA 94612,(510)839-5877, www.wslfweb.org
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