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Trump Calls For Vast Military Budget Expansion

State of the Union: The president wants to raise the defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion.
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President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will seek a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, a roughly $500 billion increase over current Pentagon funding, signaling a desire to aggressively expand U.S. military spending.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the request would fund his “Dream Military,” though he offered few specifics. The proposed increase could help pay for costly initiatives such as the “Golden Dome” missile defense system and a new battleship design, programs that cannot be fully supported under existing budgets. Trump suggested tariff revenues would offset the cost, although the current revenue from tariffs would still be hundreds of billions of dollars short of meeting the increase.

The defense budget only recently reached $1 trillion in 2025, boosted by $150 billion added through reconciliation. Some Republican hawks have long pushed to raise defense spending to about 5 percent of GDP.

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