Trump Invokes Defense Production Act to Tackle Munitions Supply Crunch

Trump’s June 11 Defense Production Act order lets the Pentagon’s top official strike voluntary deals with industry after finding munitions bottlenecks threaten national defense readiness.

President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on June 11, directing the Pentagon’s top official to pursue voluntary industry agreements after finding munitions supply-chain constraints may threaten national defense preparedness.

The order, made public Tuesday and formally published Wednesday in the Federal Register, rests on a legal finding that conditions in the munitions industrial base pose a potential threat to national defense. The finding triggers a process that lets the government sanction cooperation among defense contractors that antitrust law would otherwise restrict.

For aerospace executives, the stakes are direct. The bottlenecked subsystems named in the order — solid rocket motors, igniters and guidance systems — are core components of missiles carried by Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft.

The directive, formally Presidential Determination No. 2026-15, was signed June 11. It was filed with the Federal Register on June 16 at 11:15 a.m., a day ahead of its formal publication in Federal Register Volume 91, No. 116, page 36745 — explaining the gap between when the memo became public and its official release.

“I hereby find that conditions exist which may pose a direct threat to the national defense or its preparedness programs,” Trump said in the determination.

“Systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base, including limited production capacity, fragile supply chains, long-lead dependencies, and related production bottlenecks, may impair the ability of the United States to produce, sustain, and expand the availability of munitions, missiles, and equipment required for the national defense,” the determination states.

The determination delegates authority under sections 708(c)(1) and 708(d) of the act — codified at 50 U.S.C. 4558 — to pursue voluntary agreements and plans of action with industry. That authority is subject to a consultation and approval requirement in section 708(c)(2), and the determination does not name any company or order a specific production quantity.

Reuters reported the authority was delegated to the Pentagon chief, or defense secretary. The Federal Register’s official text, however, delegates it to the “Secretary of War” — the title the administration revived for the post now held by Pete Hegseth.

The Defense Production Act, enacted in 1950 during the Korean War mobilization, gives the president broad authority to expand industrial capacity for national defense. Section 708, the provision Trump invoked, requires the same “direct threat” finding before the government can convene voluntary agreements.

The law does not grant companies blanket antitrust immunity. Participants must follow a consultation and approval process involving the attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission.

Michael Cadenazzi, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, described the framework’s practical purpose at a Center for a New American Security event Tuesday. “Our interest is using voluntary agreements as a way to bring industry in an antitrust environment to go ahead and have conversations with them. For us to articulate problems to them around nasty issues in the supply chain and the industrial base that allow them to communicate and work together, essentially collude,” Cadenazzi said.

He said the goal is to gather large groups of suppliers to discuss investment and production planning, certification and qualification, workforce, materials, and electronics issues.

“I want to be able to bring all the solid rocket motor providers into one room and say, ‘We have talked about having solid rocket motor problems for a long time. We now have the opposite. We have 10-12 companies that want to make SRMs. How do I best approach the market for SRMs?’” Cadenazzi told reporters after the event.

“These conversations can’t happen across companies unless we provide the framework for it. This provides that framework,” he said.

The bottleneck is not new. The solid rocket motor industry has consolidated from six U.S. manufacturers to two since 1995, the Government Accountability Office has found.

Suppliers of raw materials, components, and subsystems fell from about 5,000 to 1,000 over the following two decades, according to one manufacturer’s estimate cited by the GAO.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has reported that rebuilding Javelin missile inventories depleted by transfers to Ukraine would take 149 months — 12.5 years — at recent production rates, or about 80 months — nearly 6.7 years — at an accelerated pace, assuming no further transfers.

Defense News has reported that solid rocket motor shortages have become a bottleneck for systems including the GMLRS rocket system, with only two suppliers and numerous sub-tier vendors unable to keep pace with demand.

The order follows months of warnings in Washington about strained weapons stockpiles. CBS News has reported that the U.S. military campaign against Iran intensified scrutiny of munitions stockpiles and renewed attention on long-range missiles that could be needed in a potential conflict with China.

Bloomberg has reported that Trump’s order is meant to bolster the delivery of weapons whose stockpiles critics say have been strained by the Iran war and other conflicts.

Hegseth has pushed back on the idea that the military faces a stockpile shortage. “That is a manufactured story that the media wants to peddle and ultimately our stockpiles are great, and they’re only getting stronger,” he told CBS.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas offered a different assessment after Hegseth visited Capitol Hill seeking funding, according to CBS. “They are running short of funding they need in order to acquire the weapons and messages and things like that that they need to protect the nation,” Cornyn said.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in March 4, 2026, remarks: “The very allies this administration is demanding step up, must wait years for the American weapons they need to shoulder greater responsibility.” He added that China is “outproducing us on ships, drones, and munitions.”

The constrained subsystems cited in the order are not generic parts. The Air Force describes the AIM-120 AMRAAM, made by RTX and the standard air-to-air missile carried on tactical fighters, as powered by a solid-propellant rocket motor whose guidance unit receives midcourse updates through a data link.

Lockheed Martin’s JASSM, which the Air Force describes as a long-range, low-observable cruise missile deployed from aircraft including the B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18, is guided to its target by an infrared seeker and anti-jam GPS.

Lockheed Martin’s LRASM, an air-launched anti-ship weapon, relies on semi-autonomous guidance algorithms to find targets in contested environments, according to the Naval Air Systems Command.

The Defense Production Act dates to 1950, when Congress passed it during the Korean War to arm the president with tools to mobilize industry for national defense. Trump issued a Section 303 waiver under the same law for munitions, missiles and minerals production in 2025, and another in February for a broader set of Department of War supply chains, including aircraft, radar, electronic warfare, shipbuilding, and space systems, among other sectors.

Presidents have also reached for the act far from its original wartime purpose — including for COVID-19 medical supplies and infant formula production, and for clean-energy and critical-mineral supply chains.