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Apparently Trump is seeking a 10% cut in non-defense spending and a $500 billion increase in defense spending.
These numbers are so high that I feel like this is probably some kind of bluster or a gambit to get a smaller increase by asking for a larger one.
This would raise US defense spending as a fraction of GDP to the same level as the height of the War on Terror, except with no 9/11 to motivate political will to support the increase.
A 10% cut in non-defense spending would hurt many people, including many Trump supporters, especially given that the DOGE experiment was cancelled and so one cannot expect much efficiency increase to offset the cuts.
A $500 billion defense increase makes no sense except if the US is increasing preparations to engage in a war with China. No other potential adversary even comes close to justifying such an increase. But China is not currently threatening any vital US interests other than Taiwan, and defense of Taiwan could be increased to effective levels without $500 extra billion. It is, after all, an island with rugged terrain, 24 million people, and its own military.
If a war does happen, it carries enormous risks one way or another, even with the extra budget. If a war does not happen, it is money largely wasted in that it could be spent better instead.
It would also be a huge experiment to add on top of the already ongoing tariff project, with difficult-to-predict consequences to the economy. The consequences might be hard to predict, but I feel like it's safe to say that the money could be spent in more productive ways.
The political fallout of actually getting these changes implemented, which seems like an extreme long shot, would drive everyone other than hardcore MAGA "I love the troops" types away and people who directly benefit from defense spending away from the Republican coalition and would give non-Republicans a huge amount of fodder for campaign material.
Even the fallout of just trying to get the changes implemented is bad. It is coming not long before the midterms and it is also a ready-made gift to Newsom or whoever else runs in 2028.
What is Trump doing with this?
One theory: the war with Iran is going far worse than expected. The nominally 'neutral' government of Iraq is about to fall without oil revenues to pay workers. In addition the US has been bombing elements of the pro-Iranian PMF militias that are the primary force in Iraq, they're stronger than the Iraqi army. To a certain extent, the US is now at war with Iraq as well.
The US is flying in a large number of troops to the Middle East in C-17s. We may be looking at a multi-year campaign to retake Iraq as a staging post for a ground invasion of Iran.
Desert Storm but much more retarded and much more costly.
At any rate the airborne troops being deployed are there to do something and it probably won't be cheap.
What are your sources for this? Not asking out of disbelief but because I want as solid information as possible before making more oil bets in the coming days.
I found one X account that showed a lot of planes flying from eastern US and across Europe but I don't know for sure if it's real info.
https://nationaltoday.com/us/tn/hunter-tn/news/2026/03/31/us-deploys-special-forces-airborne-troops-to-middle-east/
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/03/30/thousands-of-us-army-paratroopers-arrive-in-middle-east-as-buildup-intensifies/
https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/25/pentagon-orders-thousands-of-troops-to-deploy-to-middle-east/
These are mostly paratroopers, heavy equipment will take longer to be brought in if at all, given sealift constraints. But perhaps the idea is that heavy forces won't be needed for the start of the campaign since they'll mostly be fighting Iraqis? Plus the cost-effectiveness of heavy armour has declined in recent years.
Or perhaps they're going for a more ambitious offensive to win the war quickly. IDK. Far too few to get anything serious done I think. The invasion of Ukraine required about 300K Russian troops and that clearly was not enough, so what are 80K at most Americans going to do?
Get killed, I guess? The coast there looks like a defender's dream and an attacker's nightmare. People talk about how China is going to struggle to land on Taiwan, but the US forces are likely to take heavy casualties and perhaps fail altogether here.
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