By Mike Stone
WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – The Trump administration plans to meet executives from the biggest U.S. defense contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss accelerating weapons production, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies drawn down by U.S. strikes on Iran and other recent military operations, sources said.
The meeting underscores the Trump administration’s drive to shore up weapons stocks after the Iran operation drew on munitions.
Companies including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon parent RTX, along with key suppliers, have been invited to attend the meeting, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan is private.
Pentagon negotiators have not been able to reach terms with large defense contractors as quickly as they would like, a U.S. official told Reuters earlier this week.
Lockheed and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. RTX declined to comment on the meeting.
The administration has been steadily ratcheting up pressure on defense contractors to prioritize production over shareholder payouts. Trump signed an executive order in January to identify contractors deemed to be underperforming on contracts while distributing profits to shareholders.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Israel’s military operations in Gaza, the U.S. has drawn down billions of dollars’ worth of weapons stockpiles, including artillery systems, ammunition and anti-tank missiles.
In a sign of the preparations underway ahead of Friday’s gathering, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg held a call with select defense contractors on Wednesday evening, a previously unreported development, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the center of the talks are deals with large contractors like Lockheed Martin, two government sources and one industry executive said. In January the company reached a seven-year agreement with the Pentagon to increase annual production capacity for its PAC-3 missile interceptors to 2,000 units a year from about 600 previously. The company has announced it expects to quadruple production of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile interceptors to 400 per year from 96.
Demand for air defense systems such as the PAC‑3 has surged among the United States and its allies amid heightened geopolitical tensions and the conflict in Iran.
The White House meeting also may coincide with the release of a supplemental budget request of around $50 billion, which Reuters was first to report on Tuesday. The new money would pay for replacing weapons used in recent conflicts including those in the Middle East. The figure is preliminary and could change depending on the length of the operation.
The supplemental request would come on top of an additional $150 billion in defense spending included in Republicans’ sweeping “one big beautiful bill.”
(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; editing by Diane Craft)
Comments