Trump Promises a New $1 Trillion Pentagon Budget
The Trump administration is set to raise the Pentagon’s budget despite promises to cut government spending drastically. The question now is: where will this money come from and will it be utilized effectively?
According to data from Statista, it currently exceeds the combined spending of the following nine countries while accounting for more than 40 percent of the world’s total military expenditure. The budget could get even more significant, even as lawmakers have sought to keep it in check in recent years.
Though president Donald Trump campaigned to reduce waste and drastically reduce the size of the federal government, he pledged to increase the Pentagon’s budget by nearly 12 percent to $1 trillion.
“Nobody’s seen anything like it,” Trump told reporters during a press event with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House.
“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’ve got a lot of bad forces out there now.”
Trump didn’t suggest any particular program or even which branches of the U.S. military could see a budget increase but simply said the spending would go towards much-needed military hardware and advanced platforms.
“We’ve never had the kind of aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered,” Trump added. “And it’s in many ways too bad that we have to do it because, hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who had previously ordered cuts at the Department of Defense (DoD), took to X and posted, “[sic] Thank you, Mr. President! COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget. President @realDonaldTrump is rebuilding our military — and FAST. (PS: we intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely — on lethality and readiness).”
Who Will Pay for the Pentagon’s New Budget?
The White House typically reveals the entire budget for the following fiscal year each spring. Fiscal year 2026 (FY26) will begin on October 1, 2025. The total amount could still change in the coming weeks.
Last year, Congress approved a budget of $892 billion for national defense programs.
Some lawmakers have pushed for increases to help the U.S. military replace aging equipment and to allow the American warfighter to maintain a strategic and tactical edge over its potential adversaries.
However, others on Capitol Hill have sought to rein in defense spending to balance the federal budget while providing tax relief to American citizens.
Though Hegseth said the intention is to “spend every taxpayer dollar wisely,” the question is where the money will come from. Trump only suggested that it would be due to cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which tech billionaire Elon Musk led.
Under a current plan, the U.S. Army has been considering scaling back its troop size by as many as 90,000 troops, a move critics have warned could cut skilled talent even as the service has struggled to meet recruiting goals in recent years.
Pentagon Budget Hike Would Come Up Short to NATO Promises
It is unclear where Trump came up with the $1 trillion figure, but as the Military Times reported, “Even with the increase, an American military budget of $1 trillion still would not match Trump’s stated goal of all NATO countries spending 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.”
In fact, despite Trump’s repeated claims that NATO doesn’t pay its fair share, the U.S. isn’t even the top spender in the alliance regarding GDP. Currently, the United States spends around 3.6 percent of its GDP on defense, lower than the nearly 4 percent paid by Poland and Estonia. Moreover, Lithuania announced earlier this year that it would increase its defense spending to as much as 5 percent.
Pentagon’s Budget Increase Will Be for Modernizing
The armed services have also clarified that money should be invested in modernization efforts rather than buying more planes and warships or maintaining platforms past their prime. Even if a larger budget is approved, Pentagon officials could face a showdown with lawmakers over how the money is spent.
In addition, the national defense budget includes more than just the DoD, as it funds other agencies. Still, Trump’s specific use of the “military” suggests he may think more of the traditional armed services than other departments and federal agencies.
The biggest concern is that it is providing more money without a mission-specific focus.
“Of the more than 200 nations on Earth, no nation comes remotely close to the United States regarding defense spending,” Harrison Kass wrote previously for The National Interest. “Granted, the United States has more ambitious strategic goals than most other nations and has spent a generation as a lone hegemon, but to triple the nearest rival suggests a remarkable investment.”
Kass further warned, “Despite spending nearly $1 trillion per year on the military, the United States is still incapable of dominating the world order from a military sense… the United States can deploy to multiple fronts simultaneously. But could the United States, if asked, contain China in the Indo-Pacific with brute force? Could the United States confront China and Russia simultaneously?”
Even as the United States spends vastly more than those nations, some of the Pentagon’s programs continue to be wildly expensive, including its nuclear-powered supercarriers that still cost billions to build, millions to operate, and millions more when it comes time to retire them. Likewise, the United States is engaged in a costly war of attrition with the Iran-backed Houthis.
As much as $1 billion a month is being spent to maintain the presence of warships and aircraft in the Middle East and to counter the relatively low-cost drones the militants have fired at the U.S. Navy’s vessels and commercial shipping.
Yet, the Houthis are no less capable than they were a year and a half ago. The days of regime change may be over, and the Houthis know as much.
And unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we can’t win the fights of the twenty-first century by throwing money at the problem.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image: Shutterstock/Joshua Sukoff.