President Donald Trump has proposed raising U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion after announcing a run of new, expensive plans to build up America’s armed forces.
Why It Matters
The U.S. is already the world’s top military spender, dedicating roughly $997 billion to defense in 2024. This equates to about 3.4 percent of GDP. Congress approved a $901 billion defense budget for the 2026 fiscal year in December.
Although defense spending has surged in recent months across the world, U.S. military expenditure ballooning to $1.5 trillion would represent a massive increase of nearly 50 percent.
Trump has embarked on multiple, eye-wateringly costly programs that have so far not had a clear funding path, including his Golden Dome missile defense shield against advanced long-range missiles and the recently-unveiled Trump-class battleship design. The U.S. is also in the process of modernizing its vast strategic nuclear arsenal.
What To Know
The huge boost in defense spending would fund the administration’s “‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday. The president said the broad range of tariffs slapped on other countries since the start of his second term in office had generated the “tremendous income” needed to fund the increase in “troubled and dangerous times.”
Congress has to approve changes to defense spending. Lawmakers did vote to dedicate an additional $150 billion to the military through a reconciliation bill last year and Trump has long lobbied for raising defense spending.
“If you do want increasing capabilities, you are going to have to pay for them—which was probably going to require some sort of uplift in the defense budget,” said David Blagden, an associate professor of international security and strategy at the University of Exeter, U.K.
Such a dramatic spike in defense spending will “impose huge costs on the United States’ own voters and citizens,” Blagden told Newsweek. “Whether that’s higher taxes, or more debt, or worse inflation, or cuts to other services—it has to be paid for somehow.”
Tariffs are essentially a tax paid by those importing foreign goods into the U.S.
Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon said he “strongly” supported Trump’s announcement and called for a “steady minimum” of 4 percent of GDP flowing into the military.
Trump had on Wednesday taken aim at American defense giant Raytheon, accusing the contractor of being “the least responsive” to the Pentagon and the “slowest in increasing their volume.” Raytheon manufactures some of the most in-demand military kit, not least the vaunted Patriot ballistic missile defense system widely sought by U.S. allies and battle-proven in Ukraine against cutting-edge weapons.
“Either Raytheon steps up, and starts investing in more upfront Investment like plants and equipment, or they will no longer be doing business with the Department of War,” Trump said.
The U.S. on Wednesday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker suspected of violating U.S. sanctions in the North Atlantic and a second vessel near the Caribbean. This came just days after the U.S. attacked Caracas and captured Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, along with his wife, Cilia Flores.
The administration has also deepened a yawning rift with fellow NATO member Denmark by refusing to rule out using military action to take control of Greenland, a strategic semiautonomous territory in the Arctic.
What People Are Saying
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Trump “is rebuilding our military—larger, stronger, and more lethal than ever before.”
Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon said Wednesday: “We need a steady minimum of 4% GDP to modernize our nuclear deterrent, boost our Navy and AF, and support our service-members.”
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