Trump States Military Spending Could Be Cut in Half During His Presidency

Cutting the military-industrial complex.

President Donald Trump recently stated that military spending could be cut in half during his time in office, in a proclamation that should terrify the military-industrial complex.

“At some point, when things settle down, I’m going to meet with China and I’m going to meet with Russia, in particular those two, and I’m going to say there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1 trillion on the military … and I’m going to say we can spend this on other things,” Trump said.

“When we straighten it all out, then one of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that,” he added.

President Trump also said building new nuclear weapons would be a waste of resources.

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many you could destroy the world 50 times over or 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and [Russia] is building new nuclear weapons, and China is building new nuclear weapons,” Trump said, adding that his goal is “denuclearization” and Russian President Vladimir Putin is on board “in a very big way.”

As a consequence of President Trump's statements, defense contractors who enrich themselves based on war saw their stocks fall on Wall Street. Lockheed Martin dropped by 1.6 percent, Northrop Grumman cratered by 3.4 percent and General Dynamics fell 2.1 percent.

Analysts say that some of Trump’s proposals have indicated he will go the other way and create large-scale new military spending projects, and Republicans in Congress want to boost military spending as well.

“On the other hand, Trump also recently signed an executive order to build a major new missile defense system to cover the US and its military bases abroad, which could lead to a new arms race and will come with a huge price tag. Republicans in Congress are also looking to increase military spending by at least $100 billion,” wrote analyst Dave DeCamp for Antiwar.com.

If President Trump really wants to cut waste in the federal government, the DOD and the Pentagon cannot be ignored.