Donald Trump proposes an astronomical increase in defense spending to face “dangerous times”

The president made his call for the huge increase in defense spending just days after he ordered a military operation that resulted in the capture of the Venezuelan president. Nicolas Maduro who was transferred to face drug trafficking charges in the United States.

US forces maintain a significant presence in the Caribbean Sea.

The military budget by 2026 it is 901 billion dollars.

Trump has also renewed in recent days his call to take control of the Danish territory of Greenland for reasons of national security, in addition to hinting that he is willing to order military operations in Colombia. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has ominously warned that Cuba “is in trouble.”

“This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Army’ that we have long deserved and, more importantly, that will keep us safe and protected, no matter the enemy,” Trump posted on the Truth Social social network when announcing his proposal.

The military just got a big boost of about $175 billion in the “big, beautiful bill” of GOP tax cuts and spending reductions that Trump signed last year.

Insist on more funding for the Pentagon almost certainly Will meet resistance from Democrats that work to maintain parity between changes in defense and non-defense spending. But it is also sure to draw objections from GOP deficit hawks who have opposed more military spending.

He added that he is comfortable with the increase in military spending due to the increased revenue created by his government through the tariffs he has ordered on allies and adversaries around the world since his return to office.

The U.S. government collected gross revenue of $288.5 billion last year from tariffs and other excise taxes, up from $98.3 billion in 2024, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

That’s a significant increase in import tax revenue. But it is not enough to cover the various promises made by Trump, who has said that tariffs can also pay dividends to taxpayers, pay off the national debt and, now, cover increased military spending.

Meanwhile, Trump also threatened on Wednesday to end Pentagon weapons purchases from Raytheon – one of the main US defense contractors – if the company did not abandon its stock buyback practice and invest more funds to expand its weapons manufacturing capacity.

“Either Raytheon steps up and starts investing more in initial investment like plants and equipment, or they will no longer do business with the War Department,” Trump said on social media. “Furthermore, if Raytheon wants more business with the US government, under no circumstances will they be allowed to do more stock buybacks, where they have spent tens of billions of dollars, until they get their act together,” he added.

The threat came as the president issued an executive order calling on the Pentagon to begin a review to identify defense contractors breaching the terms of their contracts and they do not invest enough in manufacturing construction, but they still participate in share buybacks or distribute dividends to shareholders.

The order also calls on the Pentagon to take steps to ensure that future contracts with any new or existing defense suppliers contain a provision prohibiting stock buybacks during a period of poor performance on U.S. government contracts.

The order also calls on the Pentagon to stipulate in future contracts that executive incentive compensation is not tied to short-term financial metrics.

Trump has repeatedly complained in recent months that defense companies present woeful delays in the delivery of critical weapons and yet they continued to distribute dividends and buy shares from their investors, in addition to offering eye-watering salaries to their top executives.

The criticism of Raytheon, however, was the most direct to date toward a particular contractor.

The company is responsible for manufacturing some of the military’s most widely used and notable missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, the shoulder-launched Javelin and Stinger missiles, and the Sidewinder air-to-air missile.

Raytheon also owns Pratt and Whitney, a company responsible for manufacturing a series of jet engines that power aircraft for all military branches, including the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

On Wall Street, shares of defense contractors fell. Northrop Grumman lost 5.5%, Lockheed Martin gave up 4.8% and RTX Corp., Raytheon’s parent company, fell 2.5%.