Trump Is Planning a Massive $200 Billion Boost for Defense Spending

Last month I theorized that President Trump’s defense budget would bring another $40 billion spending into the fold. 

I got that figure by analyzing the defense budgets passed during Trump’s first term and scaling those figures out. 

But it looks like I was wrong. Because it seems as though Congress is already teeing up another $200 billion in defense spending — money that will be added to the current $850 billion budget passed by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

I’ve been saying for years now that we’d hit a $1 trillion defense budget in the course of this administration. So that checks out. It’s just happening sooner than even I anticipated. 

The main proponent of the defense spending increase is Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

Wicker has a two-prong strategy for securing the additional funds. He intends to secure the first $100 billion increase through a reconciliation bill that’s already in the works. And then he’ll push to pile on another $100 billion in the FY26 budget.

Wicker also advocates spending 5% of America’s GDP on defense, which would be a massive increase over the 3.4% we currently spend. That would mean spending in the ballpark of $1.35 trillion. 

That would be an astronomical increase, but it seems like Trump is on board. The president hasn’t yet explicitly said that 5% of GDP would be his target spend for defense, but he has called on NATO allies to spend that much. 

“I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago,” Trump said last month.

Obviously, if that’s the expectation for NATO, it seems reasonable that 5% would be the benchmark for U.S. defense spending, as well. 

So where would all this money go?

In short, everywhere.

Ground forces, warships, cybersecurity, drones, and maybe, above all else, a new “Iron Dome” to guard against incoming missiles. 

The missile shield is a top priority for Trump, who called for its immediate construction in an executive order almost as soon as he took office last month. The order gave Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth 60 days to deliver a plan for the “state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defence shield.”

With that plan pending, there’s no outlay for potential cost, but I guarantee you it won’t be cheap. Putting something like that together is going to a vast array of air, ground, and space assets for threat detection, targeting, and interception. 

Efforts to refurbish America’s atrophied defense-industrial complex, mass-produce unmanned vehicles, improve communications, enhance cybersecurity, modernize current defense technologies with AI and machine learning, dominate the space domain, and close the gap between Russia and China with respect to hypersonic weapons will also require billions upon billions of dollars.

Indeed, there are plenty of defense initiatives that could use more money to achieve or accelerate their goals. So while things like government workers and foreign aid are already being discarded from U.S. budget outlays, defense spending is on an upward trajectory.

And a steep one, at that. 

Investors should act accordingly.

Fight on,

Jason Simpkins

Simpkins is the founder and editor of Secret Stock Files, an investment service that focuses on companies with assets — tangible resources and products that can hold and appreciate in value. He covers mining companies, energy companies, defense contractors, dividend payers, commodities, staples, legacies and more…

In 2023 he joined The Wealth Advisory team as a defense market analyst where he reviews and recommends new military and government opportunities that come across his radar, especially those that spin-off healthy, growing income streams. For more on Jason, check out his editor's page.

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