President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to hike the Pentagon budget to over $1 trillion for the first time ever.
Speaking to reporters alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the upcoming budget would be ‘in the vicinity’ of $1 trillion, a major boost from this year’s $850 billion budget.
‘COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget,’ Hegseth posted on X.
He said Trump is ‘is rebuilding our military – and FAST.’
The budget for all national security programs, including the Department of Defense, nuclear weapons development and other security agencies, is at $892 billion for this year.
Moving to a $1 trillion Pentagon budget would be a 12% increase over current levels.
But the $1 trillion budget idea comes just as the Pentagon has moved to cut 8% each year for five years from each program to reinvest in modernization. The department is also planning to slash tens of thousands from its civilian workforce and consolidate bases across the world.
‘We’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military,’ he said. ‘$1 trillion. Nobody has seen anything like it.
‘We are getting a very, very powerful military. We have things under order now.’
White House officials are expected to unveil their budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 later this spring before Congress hashes out the appropriations process.
Even a $1 trillion budget would not put the U.S. at Trump’s stated target for NATO countries to spend on defense: 5%.
But the president said the cash influx would be used to kickstart production on new equipment and technologies.
‘We’ve never had the kind of aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered,’ he said. ‘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.’
The Trump administration recently unveiled a Boeing contract for the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter jet, the F-47, which the service branch expects to cost around $20 billion from 2025 to 2029.
‘We know every other plane,’ Trump said. ‘I’ve seen every one of them and it’s not even close. This is a next level.’
An announcement on the Navy’s next-generation fighter jet, F/A-XX, has been stalled, while chief of naval operations Adm. James Kirby told reporters Monday work on the new jet’s contract was taking place at ‘secretary-level and above.’