Trump Calls for $1.5 Trillion to Build a ‘Dream Military’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for a staggering 50% increase to the previously proposed military budget to bring the total up to $1.5 trillion.

In the Wednesday afternoon Truth Social post, Trump claimed the budget increase was “for the good of our country,” citing “very troubled and dangerous times”:

After long and difficult negotiations with Senators, Congressmen, Secretaries, and other Political Representatives, I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars. This will allow us to build the “Dream Military” that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe.

Further down the post, the president said the U.S. government will be able to make such a huge increase due to additional revenue supposedly brought in from his sweeping tariffs:

If it weren’t for the tremendous numbers being produced by Tariffs from other Countries, many of which, in the past, have “ripped off” the United States at levels never seen before, I would stay at the $1 Trillion Dollar number but, because of Tariffs, and the tremendous Income that they bring, amounts being generated, that would have been unthinkable in the past (especially just one year ago during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, the Worst President in the History of our Country!), we are able to easily hit the $1.5 Trillion Dollar number while, at the same time, producing an unparalleled Military Force, and having the ability to, at the same time, pay down Debt, and likewise, pay a substantial Dividend to moderate income Patriots within our Country!

Karl Spooner: Posting chart of military spending:

Sorry, but those numbers are all lies.
Here is the real picture:

USA is no longer ~$1 trillion.
For 2027 the US will spend $1.5 trillion.
China spends vastly more than $235 billion.
Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and hidden military spending, China's number is ~$800 billion.
Russia also spends vastly more than $146 billion.
Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and hidden military spending, Russia's number is ~$600 billion.
IOW, China and Russia combined ≈ $1.4 trillion.
European NATO/EU allies ≈ $500 billion in 2025, pledged to rise to $1.3 trillion by 2030.
US Asian allies -- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Australia, India -- combined ≈ $400 billion, planned for increase to ~$600 billion by 2030.

So, any suggestion that US defense spending outmatches our adversaries and allies combined is complete nonsense.
None of them are as weak and helpless as some listings may suggest.

Karl Spooner: "our 800 military bases around the world..."

ansel12: "You guys have seen that corrected over and over but you still post that lie."

I can help with this:

In total: 800 US military bases in
128 countries assigned
165,000 US military personnel
=11% of the US armed forces stationed overseas
Of those 800 bases, only 128 are major US bases in 49 countries
However, 93% of all US overseas forces are stationed in just 8 countries, plus Guam: Japan, Germany, South Korea, Italy, UK, Spain, Turkey & Guam (US territory).
All the rest are outposts and minor missions.
Only about half the 800 bases have any US military permanently assigned to them.

Bottom line: the US maintains significant military forces in 8 countries plus Guam which, in total, account for 11% of the US armed forces.
There are also typically something in the neighborhood of 60,000 US sailors & marines at sea at any given time.

ansel12: "I always ignored the claims of Russian and China spending because I was certain they were false and that if anyone dug into them and did an actual apple to apple comparison, dug into the details and counted them the same way America does, that the Russian and China numbers would be more realistic."

Miami Rebel: "As to your purchasing power list, just to take one of your numbers, Russia has exposed itself as an enfeebled shell of a power."

Both are true.
Adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and including estimates of hidden defense spending, Russia's total military is circa $600 billion, not the $146 billion usually reported.

This makes Russia formidable in terms of their own forces and weapons, though it says nothing about how capable those weapons, technologies, troops and doctrines will be in a peer-to-peer conflict.
It only says that Russia is putting out weapons of war at a pace higher than the $146 billion figure would suggest.

The same with China -- China is producing massive volumes of weapons & warships, all of them seemingly at or very near current generations of US and other Western weapons.
China's armed forces are double the size of the US -- 2.6 million active vs. 1.3 million for the US.
Equipped and trained to high standards, those could prove very effective in battle.

Or not.
Only a war will show who's for real and who's just bluffing, but at huge costs in blood and treasure, which Pres. Trump's Peace Through Strength military budget is intended to prevent.

Miami Rebel: "That doesn’t make me feel better about spending 5% of GDP on the military.
I don’t know where you’ve been, but from the first administration onward, President Trump has repeatedly boasted that we have the mightiest armed forces in the history of the globe."

Sure, in a sense they absolutely are, but in a maintaining Peace Through Strength sense, not in a war-winning sense.
The current US military budget of circa 3% of GDP is still the 1990s era "peace dividend" budget, which is only half of Pres. Reagan's Cold War winning 6% of GDP 1980s budgets.

Here's what it takes to fight wars:

3% of GDP = Current "peace dividend", slash our military to the bones, atrophy the US military industrial base.
4.5% of GDP = Bush/Obama peak War on Terror surge spending circa 2008 - 2011.
6% of GDP = Reagan's 1980s Cold War victory buildup
9% of GDP = Johnson/Nixon 1960s peak Vietnam War.
15% of GDP = Truman/Eisenhower 1950s peak Korean War spending.
40% of GDP = FDR's WWII winning peak spending.

So, Pres. Trump's proposed 5% of GDP matches his demands for NATO and other allies.
5% of GDP also puts Trump roughly half-way between the 4.5% peak War on Terror and Pres. Reagan's Cold War winning 6%.

The issue is: are we still legitimately in "peace dividend" times, or has the international situation grown substantially more ominous.
I think we are well into Cold War II.

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