President Donald Trump asked Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget this January and reiterated his aim with the release of his 2027 budget request Friday. Now it is up to the Republican-controlled Congress to turn Trump’s budget blueprint into reality, a much-needed step since the new spending levels would bring us in line with the 5% of gross domestic product we are asking our allies in the Atlantic and Pacific to spend on defending themselves.
Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is near historic lows at 3.7%. Only President Joe Biden, who left our nation’s defenses woefully unprepared to meet security threats posed by China, Russia, and Iran, spent less on defense. While President Barack Obama steadily cut defense spending during his term in office, he averaged above 4.5% of GDP and didn’t fall below 4% until his last year in office. Historically, we spent north of 10% of GDP on defense during the Korean and Vietnam wars, which fell to 6% under President Jimmy Carter, before rising to almost 7.5% under President Ronald Reagan.
The threat we face from China is far more severe than the challenge posed by Russia, and we should be prepared to meet it at sea, in the air, and in space. Critically, Trump’s budget makes investments in all of these areas, including a request for 123 new Navy vessels, resupplying our depleted missile stockpiles, and new capital spending on space-based missile defense sensors and interceptors. Our troops will receive significant pay raises as well, while billions more dollars will be spent reviving our military industrial base.
Trump’s budget promises to “hold the line on total [discretionary] spending” by cutting billions from “woke, weaponized, and wasteful programs.” Trump’s budget cuts include canceling $15 billion in subsidies for renewable energy and $4 billion in grants to electric vehicle battery makers. Hundreds of millions will be cut from the Environmental Protection Agency’s “environmental justice” programs, including funding for a “climate change equity tracker” and an “energy-justice model.” The nonprofit industrial complex also takes a huge hit with major cuts to the African Development Fund, the Global Environment Facility, and the Minority Business Development Agency.
The identified budget cuts are good and should be adopted by Congress. Unfortunately, Trump’s budget does not mention or address the true drivers of our national debt — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
In fairness to Trump, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced future Medicaid spending growth by almost $1 trillion over the next ten years. And the administration has also made several significant under-the-radar reforms to Medicare that should lower future deficits. But these reductions are not nearly enough to bring deficits under control.
Unlike Biden, at least Trump has not made our Social Security more insolvent by promising benefits to even more retirees. But he still has not touched the program and has repeatedly promised he will not do so. There is a certain political wisdom in this strategy: most voters like it, but it also leaves the next president, whoever that is, with fewer options when the Social Security Trust Fund goes bankrupt as it is projected to do so in 2034.
Congress should approve Trump’s military buildup because the United States cannot deter China, reassure allies, and rebuild its industrial base on a bargain budget. But Republicans should not pretend that defense spending alone can secure us. Unless entitlement spending is addressed, today’s necessary rearmament will arrive alongside tomorrow’s avoidable debt crisis.