President Donald Trump has invoked the US Defence Production Act in a bid to accelerate the delivery of weapons after stockpiles were depleted during the war with Iran and other conflicts.
Mr Trump cited “systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base” in his order for Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to make “voluntary agreements and plans of action” to address the reduced US defence capacity, according to a memo dated June 11 and posted in the Federal Register.
While the document didn’t detail how those agreements would go beyond the administration’s engagement with defence contractors like Lockheed Martin and RTX, the Pentagon’s industrial base policy chief said the DPA allowed for consultations with private businesses without violating antitrust law.
The “voluntary agreements” are meant to allow for “conversations with them, for us to articulate problems to them, around nasty issues in the supply chain or the industrial base,” Michael Cadenazzi told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“We are asking them to work together in a way that would normally be problematic in an open and competitive market sense,” Mr Cadenazzi added, noting that tapping the DPA was the result of a nine-month effort and not a sudden shift in policy. “Sometimes we need the collective wisdom of all the assembled companies to collaborate.”
The Iran conflict that started on February 28 has spurred concerns that the US has stretched its resources, further drawing down stockpiles of critical munitions including interceptor missiles.
Trump administration officials have emphasised a need to limit resources to allies and partners, such as war-torn Ukraine, as part of a drive to prioritise the domestic industrial base.
Mr Hegseth has pushed back on worries over US stockpiles, saying last month that “the munitions issue has been foolishly and unhelpfully overstated” and that “we have plenty of what we need.”
Invoking the Cold War-era Defence Production Act allows the President to take unilateral actions to bolster US national defence capabilities and constitutes a marked escalation of the administration's efforts to replenish weapons stockpiles.
- With Bloomberg
