Top Republican defense hawks are concerned about President Donald Trump’s plans for military spending after Friday’s release of the White House budget.
Trump’s budget calls for boosting military spending by 13% to more than $1 trillion, but defense hawks say this is not what it appears to be.
“OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget. It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. said.
Critics said the Office of Management and Budget plans to do so by taking $119 billion from money set for defense in the budget reconciliation bill.
Last month, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said they expected to see the military budget above the $1 trillion mark. In early April, Trump mentioned the $1 trillion figure.
“We have to build our military, and we’re very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong, because you got a lot of bad forces out there now,” Trump said at the time.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said Friday’s presidential budget comes up short.
“America’s national defense is facing extraordinary challenges. We are no longer deterring our adversaries,” he said. “We are being outpaced in the development and deployment of critical military capabilities. And our defense industrial base has atrophied to the point where I fear we could no longer sustain a prolonged conflict.”
Rogers said it resulted from “chronic underinvestment” in the U.S. Department of Defense.
“I am very concerned the requested base budget for defense does not reflect a realistic path to building the military capability we need to achieve President Trump’s Peace Through Strength agenda,” he said. “I look forward to working with the President and the Senate to achieve real growth in the defense budget and put America on track to realize the President’s goal of investing five percent of GDP on defense for NATO countries.”
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said Trump’s budget would “double down on the Biden Administration’s material neglect for the glaring national security threats.”
“OMB accounting gimmicks may well convince Administration officials and spokesmen that they’re doing enough to counter the growing, coordinated challenges we face from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and radical terrorists,” McConnell said. “But they won’t fool Congress. The correct response to the most dangerous threats to U.S. interests in decades is not a fifth straight budget request that proposes a real-dollar cut to the U.S. military.”
Wicker said the budget could threaten Trump’s military spending priorities.
“President Trump successfully campaigned on a Peace Through Strength agenda, but his advisers at the Office of Management and Budget were apparently not listening. For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms,” Wicker said. “The Big, Beautiful Reconciliation Bill was always meant to change fundamentally the direction of the Pentagon on programs like Golden Dome, border support, and unmanned capabilities – not to paper over OMB’s intent to shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to service members.”
