Washington (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of the department’s 2026 budget to reallocate $50 billion in funds, the Pentagon said Wednesday. This decision follows reports that he had directed deep, multi-year cuts to military spending. US media reported that Hegseth instructed senior Defense Department leaders to plan for cuts that could reduce the defense budget by eight percent annually, totaling approximately $290 billion within the next five years.
The Pentagon did not directly deny these reports but instead characterized the effort as one aimed at reallocating funding from programs favored by former president Joe Biden to those advocated by his successor, Donald Trump. “Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” Robert Salesses, performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense, stated.
“The department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars. The offsets are targeted at eight percent of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities,” the statement read.
A report from the Washington Post described a memo from Hegseth, dated Tuesday, which ordered the development of plans for an eight percent cut from the defense budget in each of the next five years. Hegseth’s memo stated that the proposed cuts must be formulated by February 24 and include 17 categories that Trump wants exempted. These categories include operations at the US border with Mexico and modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense.
The memo also called for funding for Indo-Pacific Command and Space Command while excluding others, such as European Command, which has been instrumental in US strategy throughout the war in Ukraine, according to the Post. The Defense Department “must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence,” Hegseth reportedly wrote in the memo. “Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit,” he continued.
The Pentagon’s budget for 2025 is around $850 billion, and the cuts outlined in the memo, if fully implemented, would lower that figure by tens of billions each year to approximately $560 billion by the end of the five-year period. Trump has pledged to cut government spending, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with executing that effort, reportedly visited the Pentagon last week. Hegseth expressed support for DOGE’s work at the Pentagon in a Tuesday post on X: “Let’s get to work. DOGE the waste; Double-Down on warriors,” he wrote.
© 2024 AFP
