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By Ellie Cook and Shane Croucher
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The Pentagon has told suppliers of missiles to the United States to double or even quadruple their production of weapons, according to a Monday report by The Wall Street Journal.
Newsweek has reached out to the Pentagon for comment via email.
Why It Matters
More than three-and-a-half years of war in Ukraine, the so-called 12-day war between Israel and Iran, and a general surge in demand for long-range weapons and air defense interceptors have depleted stockpiles of missiles—a cause of growing anxiety as the U.S. looks towards a possible future conflict with China.
Read More on Politics
Missiles are typically very expensive and laborious to produce. There are pressing concerns about how often costly and increasingly scarce missiles have been used to shoot down disposable drones costing just tens of thousands of dollars.
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What To Know
Top Pentagon officials have been meeting with representatives from U.S. missile manufacturers, the Journal reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. One high-level meeting in June was attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the report.
"President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are exploring extraordinary avenues to expand our military might and accelerate the production of munitions," Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, told the newspaper. "This effort has been a collaboration between defense industry leaders and senior Pentagon officials."
The Pentagon reportedly wants to build up stocks of 12 weapons in particular for a possible military confrontation with China, including the vaunted Patriot missiles.
The Patriot ground-based missile defense system is one of the U.S.'s most advanced air defense systems. It is considered the gold standard, but there are relatively few of them.
The Pentagon wants industrial players to produce nearly four times the current number of Patriots, the Journal reported.
The administration has said it intends to swivel away from Europe and toward the Indo-Pacific as Beijing ploughs ahead with its nuclear and conventional military buildup.
Hegseth, speaking at a major defense forum earlier this year, said Beijing was "preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific" and was gearing up for the "real deal" of an invasion push on Taiwan. China's foreign ministry denounced the speech as "filled with provocations and intended to sow division."
Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway part of mainland China that it intends to one day reunite under central control. But Taipei, which has established a democratic government, has long asserted its independence from Beijing and aligned itself with Western allies.
What People Are Saying
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in May during a speech in Singapore: “We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent,” adding that China’s army “is rehearsing for the real deal.”
Rear Admiral Hu Gangfeng, vice president of China’s National Defense University, said in response to Hegseth's May speech, per the Associated Press: “Some of the claims are completely fabricated, some distort facts and some are cases of a thief crying ‘stop thief.' These actions are nothing more than attempts to provoke trouble, incite division and stir up confrontation to destabilize the Asia-Pacific region."
Update 9/29/25 at 9:18 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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