More SOYBEANS: Trump wants to spend record amount on defense
The Donald Trump administration has released a draft budget for next year. The priority is the army and security. If Congress approves this plan, military spending will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in American history. All other areas, from ecology to education, are facing serious cuts. Even international organizations, including the United Nations, may be left without funding. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Trump's proposal
"No one has seen anything like this before. <...> We are saving a lot, but the army is what we really need to build," the American leader said before sending the draft federal budget for fiscal year 2026 to Congress (it begins on October 1).
The White House has allocated $1.01 trillion for defense spending, which is 13% more than in 2025, and now accounts for 3.2% of the country's GDP, Bloomberg reports, citing sources.
The Pentagon will receive $961 billion of this amount, which is $84 billion more than the Joe Biden administration planned last year. Defense Minister Pete Hegseth hastened to assure that this time the money would be spent "wisely."
So far, this is not a law, but rather the wishes of the administration, but given that the Republicans, albeit by a small margin, control both chambers, the president has a chance to push through a solid part of his initiatives.
One of Bloomberg's interlocutors noted that such an increase in defense spending is comparable to what was initiated under Ronald Reagan. In particular, the money is planned to be spent on the modernization of nuclear weapons, shipbuilding, an increase in salaries for military personnel (by 3.8%), as well as the creation of the Golden Dome missile defense system, which "should protect the entire territory of the country." The traditionally pro-democratic CNN reported in March that experts consider this project to be very expensive and rather useless.
In addition, the president plans to immediately increase funding for the Department of Homeland Security by 65% to $175 billion to strengthen border control or, as the White House says, "repel invasion."
We decided to cut back
Initially, the Trump administration sought to optimize within the framework of the policy of maximum reduction of government spending, which was previously constantly stated by the president and his colleague Elon Musk. However, this strategy did not affect the military budget items.
The day before, the US Accounting Chamber criticized the Pentagon for the lack of transparency in operations — in these conditions, there are truly limitless opportunities for embezzlement and fraud. From fiscal year 2017 to 2024, the country's Defense Ministry reported cases of "losses" totaling about $10.8 billion.
At the same time, the authorities plan to cut funding for everything that is not related to the army. We are talking about ecology and renewable energy, science, education and medicine, as well as social programs. International organizations may also be left without money. Donald Trump plans to cut foreign aid by 84% at once, to $9.6 billion.
In particular, the White House intends to drastically reduce the financing of the United Nations, considering its peacekeeping operations ineffective. This is very painful for the UN, because the United States covered almost a third of its peacekeeping operations. But for the American budget, the savings are purely symbolic — $1.61 billion.
The total reduction in civil costs will amount to 22.6%, or $163 billion. The White House calls this "the lowest level of non-military spending since 2017."
During the election campaign, Donald Trump and businessman Elon Musk, who supports him (now head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), repeatedly promised to drastically cut the budget by $2 trillion at once. However, the actual proposals look much more modest — only $150 billion, which is 13 times less than the previously announced amount.
Democrats are furious, calling the budget a "blow to ordinary Americans." But there are also dissatisfied Republicans. Given the shakiness of their existing majority in Congress, Trump is unlikely to be able to push through all the initiatives. However, the general trend is clear: the army is a priority, and the rest is based on a residual principle. Congress still has five months to decide which of these ideas to implement.
What do the experts think
Andrei Kortunov, the scientific director of the Russian Council on International Affairs, noted in an interview with Izvestia that there is a tradition in the United States: when there is an election campaign, any candidate always advocates budget cuts.
— However, this does not mean that these promises are fulfilled later. More often it happens just the opposite. In this case, we are talking about programmed expenditure items for which there should be an increase in payments to military personnel, mainly pension provision for retiring soldiers and officers. There are also social benefits that increase one way or another, regardless of the desire or unwillingness of the White House leadership," the expert noted.
The political scientist added that, in addition, Trump's technocratic approach to foreign and defense policy played a role.
— Donald Trump, like many presidents before him, is betting heavily on the alleged technological superiority of the United States over a potential adversary. This is where ideas like the Golden Dome, the modernization of American strategic forces, sixth—generation fighter jets, and so on come from," the specialist explained.
He stressed that all these high-tech projects, among other things, are also very expensive.
— All this, obviously, makes the military budget heavier. In addition, it can be assumed that Trump wants to "warm up" the military industry in this way, since it is also one of the "locomotives" of the country's reindustrialization. Based on the fact that the markets for American defense contracts will grow around the world, the arms trade will increase, the analyst believes.
Kortunov added that the draft proposed by the president would probably be amended in Congress, but in general, the trend towards an increase in the budget would continue.
Alexander Ermakov, a junior researcher at the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security, noted in a conversation with Izvestia that Trump, like his predecessors in office, was probably unhappy with the current state of the US missile defense system.
— We know that the Americans have been building the so-called global missile defense system for 20 years. As a result, they now have such a semi-experimental system with very limited capabilities. But it is precisely the protection of the continent from intercontinental missiles that they, in fact, do not have. That's why Trump decided to rebuild missile defense at a new qualitative level. To implement this project, it is necessary to rely on space interception facilities. This, in fact, is the main news of the Golden Dome and the reason why it is compared to Reagan's Star Wars," the expert said.
Ermakov added that at the moment the Golden Dome is at the stage of discussing the appearance of the system: the Pentagon is collecting proposals from representatives of the military-industrial complex. Therefore, from time to time, individual concepts leak into the media, sometimes very exotic, sometimes simply rewritten from the 80s.
— Construction will take years. It is unlikely that anything will be done during Trump's presidential term. But if this course is followed, the result can be effective against the "junior" nuclear powers in the first place. In the context of a regional conflict, the system will be able, for example, to shoot down Iranian missiles that will be aimed at Israel or at American bases in the Middle East," said a junior researcher at the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security.
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