WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 28: Demonstrators gathered outside the White House in Washington DC, to protest US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Protesters carried Iranian and American flags as they chanted anti-war slogans during the rally. The demonstration took place in front of the White House, drawing participants who voiced opposition to the recent military actions. (Photo by Celal Gunes\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u00a0plans to\u00a0meet\u00a0with\u00a0executives\u00a0from the biggest U.S. defense contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss accelerating weapons production, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies after\u00a0strikes\u00a0on\u00a0Iran\u00a0and several other recent military efforts,\u00a0five\u00a0people familiar with the\u00a0plan\u00a0told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Companies including Lockheed Martin<\/a>\u00a0and Raytheon parent RTX<\/a>, along with other key suppliers, have been invited\u00a0to attend the\u00a0meeting,\u00a0the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.<\/p>\n The\u00a0meeting underscores the urgency felt in Washington to shore up weapons stocks after the\u00a0Iran\u00a0operation drew heavily on\u00a0munitions. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Israel began military operations in Gaza, the U.S. has drawn\u00a0down\u00a0billions of dollars’ worth of weapons stockpiles, including artillery systems, ammunition and anti-tank missiles. The conflict in\u00a0Iran\u00a0has consumed\u00a0longer-range\u00a0missiles than those furnished to Kyiv.<\/p>\n At least one of the people said the gathering was expected to center on pressing weapons makers to move faster to boost output.<\/p>\n Lockheed, the Pentagon and\u00a0White\u00a0House\u00a0did not immediately respond to requests for comment. RTX declined to comment. In a social media post Monday, Trump said there was a “virtually unlimited supply” of U.S. munitions and that “wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies.”<\/p>\n The\u00a0White\u00a0House\u00a0meeting comes\u00a0as Deputy\u00a0Defense\u00a0Secretary Steve Feinberg has been leading Pentagon work\u00a0in recent days on a supplemental budget request of around $50 billion that could be released as soon as Friday, one of the people said. The new money would pay for replacing the weapons used in recent conflicts, including\u00a0those in\u00a0the Middle East.\u00a0The figure is preliminary and could change.<\/p>\n The push to boost production has intensified following U.S. military\u00a0strikes\u00a0on\u00a0Iran, where the U.S.\u00a0deployed Tomahawk cruise missiles, F-35 stealth fighters and low-cost one-way attack drones on Saturday.<\/p>\n Tomahawk missile maker Raytheon has a\u00a0new agreement\u00a0with the Pentagon to eventually ramp production to 1,000 units annually. The Pentagon currently\u00a0plans to\u00a0buy 57\u00a0of the missiles in 2026 at an average cost of $1.3 million each.<\/p>\n The administration has been steadily ratcheting up pressure on\u00a0defense\u00a0contractors to\u00a0prioritize production\u00a0over shareholder payouts. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in\u00a0January to identify\u00a0contractors deemed to be underperforming on contracts while distributing profits to shareholders.<\/p>\n The Pentagon is expected to release a list of underperforming\u00a0contractors.\u00a0Companies named will have 15 days to submit board-approved\u00a0plans\u00a0to correct the situation. If those\u00a0plans are judged insufficient, the Pentagon can pursue enforcement actions, including contract terminations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 28: Demonstrators gathered outside the White House in Washington DC, to protest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[164,124,135,648,1698,1703,38,159,496,563,564,34,165,1095,161,49,1700,1701,1702,171,1403,772,81,565,166,1697,69,309,1696,51,40,36,1705,1704,1699,1537],"class_list":["post-1973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-boeing-co","tag-breaking-news-politics","tag-business-news","tag-defense","tag-defense-contracts","tag-defense-policy","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-policy","tag-gaza","tag-general-dynamics-corp","tag-invesco-aerospace-defense-etf","tag-iran","tag-ishares-u-s-aerospace-defense-etf","tag-l3harris-technologies-inc","tag-lockheed-martin-corp","tag-middle-east","tag-military-affairs","tag-military-events","tag-munitions-manufacturing","tag-northrop-grumman-corp","tag-pentagon","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-politics","tag-raytheon-technologies-corp","tag-spdr-sp-aerospace-defense-etf","tag-steve-feinberg","tag-tehran","tag-trump-administration","tag-u-s-department-of-defense","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-military","tag-war","tag-washington","tag-weapons-programs","tag-weapons-technology","tag-white-house"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}