The United States Campaign to Ban Landmines condemns the Trump Administration’s decision to lift the United States’ prohibition on the use of anti-personnel landmines, as detailed in a Department of Defense December 2, memo first reported December 19. We urge the Trump administration against such a decision and for Congress to take immediate measures to block the deployment of landmines and prohibit the stockpiling, transfer, development, production, or other acquisition of new anti-personnel landmines.
Landmines are inherently indiscriminate weapons that maim and kill civilians long after conflicts end. At least 6,279 people were killed or wounded by landmines in 2024, according to Landmine Monitor. Over the past 30 years, the world has rejected antipersonnel landmines through the Mine Ban Treaty – to which 166 countries are states parties. The Trump Administration’s decision further erodes the global norm prohibiting these weapons, as did President Trump’s January 2020 landmine policy and President Biden’s repeated transfers of anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine. As of December 20, 2025, Poland, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania are on the cusp of legally withdrawing from the Mine Ban Treaty, and Ukraine has sought to unlawfully “suspend the operation” of the Treaty in reaction to the Russian military’s ongoing assaults in Ukraine.
Efforts to enhance the safety of landmines have failed. So-called non-persistent or “self-destruct” mines remain indiscriminate as they are triggered by the victim and cannot distinguish between a combatant or a civilian. Such self-destructing mines often malfunction and remain lethal for decades. In fact, the self-destruct mechanisms cause terror in local populations who have no knowledge of when a minefield may begin to explode. This has been starkly illustrated by Russian antipersonnel landmines deployed in Ukraine.
Landmines inflict unspeakable harm on their victims – projecting metal fragments into deep wounds, destroying limbs, causing burns, traumatic brain injuries, blindness, and deafness, and fatally wounding through decapitation, blood loss, or other means. In 2024, civilian casualties constituted 90% of landmine and other explosive remnants of war casualties – with children constituting 46% of civilian casualties where data was available, according to Landmine Monitor.
The U.S. State Department has provided more than $5.09 billion to conventional weapons destruction from FY93 to FY23, making it the world’s leading donor to mine clearance efforts. This policy will only exacerbate global mine contamination and undermine clearance efforts.
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U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines-U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition
The United States Campaign to Ban Landmines-U.S. Cluster Munition Coalition (USCBL-CMC) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations working to ensure that the U.S. comprehensively prohibits antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions and joins the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Cluster Munitions. It is the national affiliate of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines-Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC), founded in New York in 1992 and recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate together with former ICBL coordinator Ms. Jody Williams of Vermont. The USCBL-CMC also calls for sustained U.S. government financial support for UXO clearance and victim assistance.
Media Contacts:
John Ramming Chappell, Co-chair U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines - Cluster Munitions Coalition, jchappell@civiliansinconflict.org
Ursala Knudsen-Latta, Co-chair U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines - Cluster Munitions Coalition, uknudsen-latta@fcnl.org