President Trump urged an end to the development of biological weapons, saying at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday that the U.S. will lead the effort.

“I’m also calling on every nation to join us in ending the development of biological weapons once and for all,” Mr. Trump said. “And biological is terrible, and nuclear is even beyond, and we include nuclear. We want to have a cessation of the development of nuclear weapons.”

The president added, “I look at weapons that are so powerful that we just can’t ever use them. If we ever use them, the world literally might come to an end. There would be no United Nations to be talking about. There would be no nothing.”

Also in the speech, he said the coronavirus pandemic came from “reckless experiments overseas.”

“Yet despite that worldwide catastrophe, many countries are continuing extremely risky research into bio weapons and man-made pathogens. This is unbelievably dangerous to prevent potential disasters,” he said.

He said his administration will head an international effort to enforce the Biological Weapons Convention, which will hold a meeting with world leaders and pioneer an artificial intelligence verification system.

The BWC prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons, according to the U.N. website.

The convention has 189 state parties as members and became effective in 1975.

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.