Forget nuclear weapons: the next major US-China-Russia rivalry could center on which power is first to expose the truth behind the UFO mystery.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) says the United States could hand its geopolitical rivals a propaganda win if the Trump administration fails to honor its promises of greater transparency on UFOs and possible evidence of extraterrestrial life.

“I think it would definitely be a misstep because of what we would be demonstrating to our people,” Burlison told The Post.

“We’re supposed to be the most transparent country in the world to its citizenry, and if another country is able to be more transparent than the United States on this topic, it would be a blemish on our otherwise pristine legacy on transparency.”

Brazil may also enter the race to reveal what governments know about unidentified flying objects. Aldo Rebelo, a former Brazilian presidential candidate and defense minister, told The Post that Brazil would publish its files if Washington released records tied to the alleged 1996 UFO crash in Varginha.

Burlison said disclosures from another country could help validate material the United States has already made public.

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“If a foreign country validates what we release, it will give more confidence to the American people that this isn’t some disinformation campaign or a hoax, and I think that would be a good thing,” Burlison said.

“I’d suggest that if he has access to it and wants to bring it to me, I will be happy to work with [him] to release that information.”

The political and strategic stakes could rise sharply if allegations that rival powers have recovered crashed UFOs are substantiated.

David Grusch, a whistleblower who previously worked as a staffer for Burlison, recently claimed on the Joe Rogan podcast that Russia and China both possess crashed UFOs.

China has acknowledged publicly that it investigates UFO reports and has used artificial intelligence to improve its analysis of the unexplained sightings, according to the South China Morning Post in 2021.

In February, investigative journalist George Knapp published a large collection of documents he smuggled out of the Soviet Union in 1991. The records indicate that Soviet authorities investigated thousands of UFO reports while publicly denying that such objects existed.