WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked some parts of the military to propose what could be cut as part of a potential 8% spending reduction for them over each of the next five years, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, although it was unclear if the total defense budget would shrink.
In a memo described to Reuters by U.S. officials, Hegseth called for the proposals by Feb. 24.
Officials said it did not appear that Hegseth wanted a major budget cut but was looking to reprioritize funding to better align with President Donald Trump’s national security priorities.
There was a long list of exemptions, including U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, funding for the military’s mission along the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as missile defense and autonomous weapons, one of the officials said.
The military’s commands that oversee operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa were not exempt.
The Pentagon’s budget is approaching $1 trillion per year. In December, former President Joe Biden signed a bill authorizing $895 billion in defense spending for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
Hegseth has said publicly that the Pentagon’s focus is on U.S. border security and threats posed by China. He has said the U.S. can no longer be “primarily focused on the security of Europe.”
Pentagon employees have braced for firings after businessman Elon Musk’s government downsizing teams started working out of the Pentagon.
Some civilian employees in the military said they had started receiving emails on Thursday saying they could be separated from the government since they were hired less than a year ago.
Leaders from across the political spectrum have long criticized waste and inefficiency at the Defense Department.
But Democrats and civil service unions have said Musk, the world’s richest person, lacks the expertise to restructure the Pentagon, and the efforts of his team risk exposing classified programs.
Attempting to cancel defense programs could trigger pushback from lawmakers to defend spending in their electoral districts, a fact defense contractors are well aware of.
The F-35, for example, has suppliers located in all 50 U.S. states, a point Lockheed makes with a map on its website detailing the economic value derived from production of the fighter jets.
Musk, himself a major U.S. defense contractor, has a particular disdain for certain defense projects, especially the F-35. He has posted on X that “Some U.S. weapons systems are good, albeit overpriced, but please, in the name of all that is holy, let us stop the worst military value for money in history that is the F-35 program!”
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