Pentagon awards contracts to rebuild US munitions arsenal against China

For decades, Washington has spoken about the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to the American people. Analysts and politicians have written countless white papers, held congressional hearings and delivered speeches warning that Beijing’s military modernization, economic coercion and technological ambitions pose an existential challenge to American military primacy. Yet for all the talk, policymakers have failed to do the thing that matters most: rebuild our industrial capacity to produce the weapons systems needed to deter – and if necessary, defeat – Chinese aggression.

This is finally changing.

Under President Donald Trump, the War Department is implementing the type of reform that Republicans have promised for a generation but never delivered. Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg aren’t just revamping the Pentagon’s charters: They’re forging a true partnership between government and industry to rebuild munitions production to a scale close to Cold War levels, with production of key systems like the Tomahawk cruise missiles increasing more than tenfold thanks to the Pentagon’s new long-term contracts.

This is the strategic imperative of our time. China spent two decades building the world’s largest navy, modernizing its nuclear arsenal, and stockpiling precision munitions, while we debated and delayed. Beijing understands that wars are won by nations that can produce weapons faster than their adversaries can destroy them. We are in a race to rebuild the arsenal of freedom – and we have lost.

Trump revises US arms sales to favor key allies and protect US arms production

Inside the Tomahawk cruise missile and how it could change the course of the war in Ukraine. (US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Carlos M. Vazquez Ii/Handout via Reuters)

For years, the defense industry faced conflicting demands, protracted negotiations, and a procurement bureaucracy that made long-term planning nearly impossible. The result was predictable: Companies could not justify large capital investments when they lacked confidence in future orders.

All this changes. The War Department understands the issues. Recently, they awarded five historic contracts that will increase production of Tomahawk cruise missiles, advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAM), and standard missiles, giving the industry up to seven years of demand signal. This type of certainty allows companies to invest billions in new production lines right here in the United States, expand their workforces, and strengthen domestic supply chains.

The War Department is committed to eliminating red tape and providing the long-term contracts necessary to enable industry to invest at scale. In turn, entrepreneurs are responding by pledging to accelerate timelines, invest more in the United States, and strengthen supply chains. The result: tens of billions of dollars in deals that will flood our arsenal with precision munitions essential to our current conflict in Iran, but more importantly, to any future conflict in the Pacific.

This is important because China is watching. Beijing’s strategists know that America’s greatest advantage has always been our industrial might – our ability to outmatch any adversary when the stakes are high enough. But they also know that this advantage has atrophied. Our defense industrial base consolidated, offshored its critical components, and operated in a just-in-time model inconsistent with wartime surge requirements.

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Previous administrations treated defense contractors as suppliers in a transactional relationship, cutting costs while providing little long-term certainty. The industry responded rationally: by consolidating, reducing capacity and optimizing peacetime margins. Meanwhile, China built 248 warships while we built 100, and stockpiled missiles while we debated acquisition reform.

The threats we face demand meaningful action. Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran: each conflict depletes our ammunition stocks and reveals the fragility of global supply chains. But the main threat remains China. Every Tomahawk missile we don’t produce, every AMRAAM we can’t deliver, every delay in expanding production capacity is a gift to Beijing’s military planners.

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The arsenal of freedom is not a metaphor. It’s the factories in Texas that make F-35s, the production lines in Arizona that ramp up missile production, and the supply chains across America’s heartland that turn raw materials into weapons systems that preserve peace through force. Rebuilding this arsenal is the way to deter Chinese aggression, reassure our allies, and ensure that in the event of conflict, America has the industrial might to prevail.

The Trump administration understands this well. Now it is running. And that makes all the difference.

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