Trump met last week with the chief executives of Lockheed, Boeing and Honeywell, according to the supplied report citing Reuters. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg pressed executives over delays on key programs during the meeting.
“You’re not doing enough” was the initial message to executives, a source told the outlet. The meeting reflected growing pressure from the administration to accelerate weapons output.
The challenge is that sophisticated missiles and interceptors require years to produce and depend on government funding cycles. Recently announced plans to expand production lines are therefore unlikely to deliver major results immediately.
“It’s going to take two to four years to replenish” the likes of the Patriot missile, Tomahawk, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system, said Jerry McGinn, director of the Center for the Industrial Base at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The problem is these systems, they’re really, really great, but they were not designed for producibility, they were designed for performance,” he told The Hill.
“They’re not really built to be made at scale. They’re essentially handmade in some ways.”
U.S. weapons inventories had already been reduced during the Biden administration by large military aid deliveries to Ukraine. They have fallen further because of Trump’s war in Iran and heightened tensions in the Middle East.
Before a tentative ceasefire announced in April, the United States reportedly used thousands of missiles in less than two months of fighting. The supplied report says Washington used nearly all of its remaining long-range stealth cruise missiles, more than half of its THAADs, almost half of its Patriot interceptors, and depleted stores of Tomahawks, Precision Strike missiles and ATACMS.
An April analysis from CSIS estimated that rebuilding these inventories to pre-Operation Epic Fury levels would take one to four years. U.S. forces have also carried out additional strikes against Iran in response to attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, including on Friday and Saturday.
The Defense Department has not publicly disclosed how many munitions have been used in the Iran war. The United States has also supplied allies with large quantities of weapons in addition to its own combat use.
Katherine Thompson, a former Trump administration official and now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said public information points to a longer timeline than Trump’s current term. “Those timelines are not something that the defense contractors are giving, but I think at a minimum we can say we’re not going to be back to pre-war levels until, based on the data that’s out there, the early 2030s,” she told The Hill.
Concerns about stockpiles led the administration earlier this year to pause some weapons sales to allies and partners. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told lawmakers last month that the United States was pausing a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan “in order to make sure we have the munitions we need” for the Iran war.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified in late April that replenishing stockpiles could take “months and years.” He blamed low munition levels on the Biden administration.
Trump has repeatedly said U.S. munitions stockpiles have “never been higher or better.” Privately, however, he has urged contractors to increase output faster by investing in factories and operations.
The Pentagon has a tentative production agreement with Lockheed Martin to triple production of Patriot interceptors. It also awarded the company a seven-year contract worth up to $35 billion for THAAD interceptors.
The administration also awarded RTX a $398.7 million contract for Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles. Even with contracts in place, the production increase is expected to take years.
Lockheed executives said in an April earnings call that increasing Patriot missile production from 650 annually to 2,000 per year would take three to four years. Both contracts are also undefinitized, meaning they cannot be fully funded until Congress approves them.
The White House last week asked Congress for $87.6 billion in supplemental funding for the Iran war and other requests. Of that amount, $21 billion is intended for munitions.
The administration is also seeking a $350 reconciliation bill to fund a large share of defense priorities, including new missiles and interceptors. Neither funding bill is assured, including among Republicans.
Thompson said failure to pass the funding would be a “significant” blow to Trump’s plans to increase munitions. “It would have a serious impact if you can’t get the money through Congress in either a supplemental vehicle or reconciliation,” she said.
“As a former congressional staffer, I’m a bit puzzled as to why that was the legislative strategy that you go with.”
Key lawmakers, including Sens. Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell, have said they do not see the reconciliation bill moving forward. The supplied report says they have also criticized the administration’s wider defense spending strategy.
Elaine McCusker, a former acting Pentagon comptroller and now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said she sees “a lot of really good momentum that gives us a production ramp to get us where we want to go” in munitions output. She also described the momentum as “being something that is somewhat perishable if we do something to stall that momentum.”
“Three to five years from now we could be a lot better off than we are now, but it takes that consistent demand signal and funding every year,” she said. Her remarks underline the central problem facing the administration: rebuilding U.S. stockpiles depends not only on contracts, but also on sustained funding and production capacity over several years.
Source: The Hill.
