Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly requested Pentagon officers Tuesday to attract up plans to slash protection spending for every of the following 5 years — because the division turned the newest goal of the Elon Musk-led Division of Authorities Effectivity’s (DOGE) cost-cutting mission.
Hegseth, 44, demanded a proposal that would come with annual 8% cuts to the Pentagon’s roughly $850 billion price range, in response to a memo obtained by the Washington Publish.
The protection secretary ordered senior Pentagon officers, high army commanders, and the administrators of a number of protection businesses to draft plans for the proposed cuts by Feb. 24.
Hegseth’s memo contained an inventory of 17 classes of spending that the Trump administration desires to be exempted from cuts, in response to the outlet, together with US-Mexico border operations, modernization of nuclear weapons, missile protection, submarine acquisition, one-way assault drones and different munitions.
“The time for preparation is over — we should act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our army, and reestablish deterrence,” Hegseth wrote within the memo. “Our price range will useful resource the combating drive we want, stop pointless protection spending, reject extreme forms, and drive actionable reform together with progress on the audit.”
It’s unclear what classes of Pentagon spending might be focused by the potential cuts — which might quantity to a roughly $68 billion annual discount in army spending — because the Washington Publish didn’t publish the total Hegseth memo.
The Pentagon and White Home didn’t reply to The Publish’s requests for remark.
Final week, President Trump floated the thought of chopping the Pentagon’s price range “in half” when geopolitical tensions begin to cool, which he expects to occur throughout his time period.
“Sooner or later, when issues calm down, I’m going to fulfill with China and I’m going to fulfill with Russia, specifically these two, and I’m going to say there’s no purpose for us to be spending virtually $1 trillion on the army,” Trump mentioned.
“Once we straighten all of it out, then one of many first conferences I wish to have is with President Xi [Jinping] of China and President [Vladimir] Putin of Russia, and I wish to say let’s lower our army price range in half. And we will try this, and I believe we’ll have the ability to try this,” the president added.
In distinction, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged in an interview with the Wall Road Journal final week that the Trump administration should “spend extra” on protection.
“[T]he administration is aware of that we’ve got to spend extra on protection. Now we have to spend extra on our army. Now we have to rise to fulfill the challenges of the twenty first century,” Vance advised the outlet.
“We additionally need to spend smarter. And that is one thing that individuals usually miss,” the veep added. “This isn’t nearly spending extra money. That is additionally about altering our procurement course of, altering our industrial base, and truly getting ready ourselves with the weapons of the long run in order that we will battle, God forbid, the conflict of the long run if we’ve got to.”
Hegseth’s memo additionally comes simply days after DOGE celebrated a “nice kickoff” with the Division of Protection, signaling that the budgeting staff is able to pore over the Pentagon’s books.
“Let’s get to work,” Hegseth wrote on X earlier this, after the DOGE “kickoff” announcement, including, “DOGE the waste; Double-Down on warriors.”
Supply hyperlink
