Record-breaking $1 Trillion US Defense-Pentagon Budget
MILITARISM, 14 Apr 2025
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Trump, Hegseth Say It’s Happening
8 Apr 2025 – With much of the globe and US public focused exclusively on tariff mania, President Trump as well as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unveiled massive news yesterday, which would have normally made a bigger impact in headlines.
The Pentagon will soon have its first $1 trillion budget. President Trump said while hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, “Nobody’s seen anything like it. We have to build out military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something we have to build, and we have to be strong.“
But ironically the announcement comes as the administration has been aggressively seeking to root out government waste and excess spending. The reality is that for decades both sides of the aisle have allowed defense spending to balloon unchecked. That looks to continue, and the big winner remains the military-industrial complex even amid a DOGE crackdown.
Hegseth too made the announcement on X while sharing the video of Trump praising the future one trillion dollar budget. “Thank you Mr. President! COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar [Defense Department] budget,” the Pentagon chief said.
Even though the Department of Defense (DoD) has never had an official budget which reached that figure, it remains the actual cost of total US military spending has for several years running actually exceeded $1 trillion.
Biden’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) totaled $895 billion, so a trillion appears the next natural progression, given the out of control nature of defense spending.
Commenting on a possible timeline for the 2026 budget rollout, Breaking Defense writes:
Exactly when the FY26 budget will drop, or what shape it will take, remains unclear. There has been talk of a “skinny budget” with few details coming first, and rumors that May is when budgets will be officially released, but nothing confirmed from the White House or Pentagon.
In a note to investors, TD Cowen analyst Roman Schweizer wrote that “based on last year’s Green Book, we assume this means a $50B increase for 050 National Defense, which was projected at $951B for the FY26 request.”
Critics of US foreign policy have ripped Trump for the move. For example, independent geopolitical analyst Tim Anderson writes, “Add another trillion to the US debt. None of the budget cuts in Washington have reached the Pentagon, which does precisely nothing to ‘defend’ the USA. The US military exclusively interferes in other countries.”
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Zero Hedge is an English-language financial blog that aggregates news and presents editorial opinions from original and outside sources. The news portion of the site is written by a group of editors who collectively write under the pseudonym “Tyler Durden” (a character from the novel and film Fight Club).
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Tags: Arms Industry, Arms Trade, Military Industrial Media Complex, Pentagon, Space Command, US Military, USA, War Economy, Warfare, Weapons
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