Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth tout record $1 trillion US defense budget

By Roxana Tiron

 

President Donald Trump said his administration had approved a defense budget in the “vicinity” of $1 trillion.

 

“We are very cost conscious but the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you have a lot of bad forces out there now,” Trump said at the White House on Monday during a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  

 

Trump added his administration will approve a budget that will be “the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military.”

 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed up with a post on social media platform X: “COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget. President @realDonaldTrump is rebuilding our military — and FAST.”

 

The Trump administration has yet to release the budget request for fiscal year 2026 as the government is operating under a stopgap funding measure for this year. The budget blueprint is not expected until later this spring.  

 

Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended the US government boost defense spending by about $50 billion more than projected in fiscal year 2026 with increases that would push the Pentagon budget past $1 trillion in the years to come. 

 

Hegseth has also been among the most vocal supporters of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting efforts, and the Pentagon, with a budget totaling $850 billion a year and some 2 million employees, is the government’s biggest.

 

The secretary in February directed reducing some unspecified Pentagon and military services spending categories by 8% and shifting those dollars to higher priority programs such as missile defense.