REPORT: Trump rearming America after Iran — and NATO must foot the bill

Introduction: one war ended, one industry fired up, one alliance under pressure

June 25, 2026: America counts its munitions

Just days after Donald Trump announced a deal with Tehran ending months of armed conflict, his administration began tallying the real cost of the war against Iran. That cost is staggering: 14,000 strike munitions used, according to Admiral Brad Cooper testifying before the Senate. An initial Pentagon estimate of $29 billion. A revised figure from Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg bringing the total to $80 billion. Simultaneously, Trump was asking Congress for an additional $87.6 billion package, much of it earmarked to cover Iran war costs.

On Wednesday, June 25, 2026, Trump summoned the CEOs of America's largest defense manufacturers to the White House. That same day, Lockheed Martin announced a $35 billion contract to quadruple its existing production of THAAD systems. It was a public demonstration of a reality NATO would have to absorb: the United States is rebuilding its arsenal, and it wants its allies to participate — financially and politically.

What Iran revealed about the limits of American military power

The war against Iran exposed a vulnerability that analysts knew but few decision-makers wanted to acknowledge publicly: American munitions stockpiles are not unlimited. The Center for Strategic and International Studies published a report that same week indicating that the real munitions consumption figures would be "significantly higher" than the declared 14,000, once interception munitions used by Patriot and THAAD systems were counted. That reality is not abstract. It means that if a major new conflict — in Eastern Europe, in the South China Sea — erupts in the coming years, America will arrive with depleted stockpiles.

The Defense Production Act: Trump rediscovers the interventionist state

A Cold War-era tool reactivated in the Trump era

Days before the deal with Tehran was announced, Trump had sent Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth a memorandum invoking the Defense Production Act, the 1950 law granting the American president emergency power to direct private companies toward national defense. That statute, born from the Korean War, is one of the most powerful instruments the federal government has for mobilizing industry. It was invoked during COVID-19; it is now invoked to address what the memorandum describes as "systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base."

The language is bureaucratic. The reality it describes is not. What Trump implicitly acknowledges by invoking that statute is that American industrial defense production is not adequate for the demands of twenty-first-century warfare. Decades of cost optimization, reduction of surplus production capacity, and industrial consolidation have produced a defense sector that cannot ramp up fast enough in actual wartime. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics produce for predictable contracts — not for emergency surges. The Defense Production Act is an admission that market logic has its limits.

The General Motors — Lockheed Martin MOU: an industrial symbol

The memorandum of understanding between General Motors and Lockheed Martin announced in June 2026 to "jointly explore opportunities to accelerate delivery of critical capabilities" illustrates the industrial response being attempted. GM, whose automotive manufacturing plants have mass-production capacity that Lockheed lacks, is potentially convertible for certain defense components. This is not the first time in American history that a major automaker has been enlisted in the national defense effort — Ford and GM plants produced tanks and aircraft during World War II.

The difference in 2026 is that the conversion is not total. It is an exploratory partnership for specific components. The production chain for modern weapons systems is incomparably more complex than a Sherman tank. But the political signal is strong: industrial America is mobilizing. And that mobilization will be presented at Ankara as a contribution that allies must order — and finance.

The $35 billion THAAD contract: deterrence as a commercial product

Quadrupling THAAD production: what that actually means

The $35 billion contract awarded to Lockheed Martin to quadruple production of THAAD systems is the most striking figure in this sequence. The THAAD — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense — is one of the world's most sophisticated anti-ballistic missile systems. It intercepts ballistic missiles in their terminal phase, at high altitude. During the war against Iran, THAAD systems deployed in the region were used intensively, contributing to the depletion of interceptor stockpiles.

Quadrupling production does not happen in weeks. The THAAD supply chain involves hundreds of sub-contractors, precision electronic components, and quality control processes that cannot be accelerated indefinitely without risk. What the contract announces is a multi-year ambition — massively increasing production capacity over the next five to ten years. It is an investment in future deterrence, not an immediate fix to the current deficit.

THAAD systems and Ukraine: an impossible equation?

Ukraine has repeatedly requested THAAD systems to protect critical infrastructure from Russian ballistic missiles. The United States has delivered Patriot units, which are more available, but THAAD remains out of reach for now — partly because stockpiles are limited, partly because training Ukrainian operators takes time, and partly for political reasons related to escalation management with Russia. If the $35 billion contract delivers its results over the coming years, the question of Ukrainian THAAD could be revisited. But that "possible future" does not help Ukraine today, when Iskander missiles are striking Kharkiv or Odessa.

Rutte's Thursday in Washington: selling security as a jobs contract

195,000 American jobs and $300 billion in orders: the economic argument

On Thursday, June 26, 2026, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Washington. His message to Trump was carefully calibrated for a Trumpian ear: European arms spending supports 195,000 American defense jobs and represents a $300 billion order book for American manufacturers over the coming years. "Now, we need supply to meet demand," he said. "Allies are investing much more. The budgets are there, but the assets we need, the capabilities to deter and defend, are simply not available at the scale or speed our security demands."

That is a politically intelligent message. Rutte knows that Trump has no patience for abstract arguments about collective security or democracy's defense. But Trump understands jobs. Trump understands contracts. By recasting NATO and support for Ukraine as an economic engine for Americans, Rutte plays the only game still viable with that interlocutor. It is not ideological capitulation. It is survival diplomacy.

What Trump wanted to hear and what Rutte said

Rutte also reminded Trump that Russia kills or seriously wounds 35,000 of its own soldiers every month. That Russian advances had "slowed considerably." That 5,000 American sorties from European bases in support of the Iran war illustrate the operational value of NATO infrastructure for American military operations. Every one of those arguments targets the same goal: justifying continued American engagement in NATO in terms of American national interest, not shared values.

Rutte's plan to require all NATO members to spend 0.25% of GDP in aid to Ukraine had collapsed before this summit, blocked by the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, and Canada. The economic argument in Washington was therefore his second option — and he chose to present it as strength rather than retreat. That is leadership under difficult conditions.

NATO at 5% of GDP: a commitment that redefines European defense

From 2% to 5%: what this shift actually represents

In 2014, NATO set a target of 2% of GDP in defense spending for its members — a threshold few were meeting. In 2025, under combined pressure from the war in Ukraine and the Trumpian realignment, members committed to 5% of GDP annually in defense spending by 2035. That is a major structural change for European economies accustomed to maintaining smaller armed forces since the end of the Cold War.

For France, this means significantly increasing a defense budget that already has substantial foundations. For Germany, which drastically downsized its armed forces after 1991, it is an industrial and human reconstruction effort that will take a decade. For countries like Poland, already spending close to 4%, the target is nearly within reach. That disparity creates internal NATO tensions — the spenders resent the savers for not carrying their share of the burden.

What this means for European defense industries

The commitment to 5% of GDP creates massive industrial demand across Europe. Companies like Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, KNDS, Leonardo, and Thales are positioned to benefit directly from this budget surge. But supply is structurally insufficient in the short term: artillery plants, missile factories, and defense systems lines cannot double output overnight. The lesson of Ukraine since 2022 — and of the Iran war since 2026 — is that peacetime industrial tempos do not adequately prepare for actual wartime demands.

Ukraine in the rearmament equation: beneficiary or competitor?

Depleted American stockpiles and Ukraine: competing priorities

Paradoxically, American post-Iran rearmament creates a tension with support for Ukraine. If the plants at Lockheed, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman are running at full capacity to replenish American stockpiles, their available production capacity for deliveries to Ukraine is proportionally reduced. The U.S. military needs to replenish its Patriots, its THAADs, its ATACMS, its Tomahawks. Those are exactly the systems Ukraine needs.

The solution lies in increasing total production capacity — which is what the Defense Production Act and giant contracts like the $35 billion THAAD deal aim to accomplish. But that increase takes time. Military Times analysts estimate replenishing depleted stockpiles will take several years. In that interval, every allocation decision is a choice between American national defense and support for allies at war. It is not a choice between right and wrong — it is a choice between competing urgencies in a world where threats are multiplying.

What European allies can do that the United States can no longer do alone

The reality of depleted stockpiles pushes toward a conclusion that optimists see as an opportunity: Europe must develop its own industrial defense capacity. Not to replace America, but to stop depending exclusively on it. Companies like KNDS and Rheinmetall are already producing artillery munitions in increasing quantities for Ukraine. Germany is rebuilding its tank production capabilities. France is accelerating its precision missile program.

It is slow. It is costly. And it is not yet enough. But the direction is right. And for Ukraine, whose own industrialists have developed remarkable national capabilities under the pressure of war — including the FP-9, potentially tested on July 2, 2026, according to Bloomberg — the prospect of a more self-sufficient European defense posture is a structurally welcome development.

The American Congress's reaction and the votes on the Iran war

War powers resolutions and the constitutional question

The week of June 25, 2026 was also marked by significant votes in the U.S. Congress. The Senate passed a war powers resolution concerning the Iranian conflict — a constitutional reminder that the power to declare war belongs to the legislature, not exclusively the executive. Senators Cassidy and Paul voted separately on a distinct Iranian war powers resolution, revealing fractures within the Republican Party over the legitimacy and conduct of the conflict.

Those legislative tensions are not secondary. They reflect a fundamental debate about what the United States is doing in the world since 2025: a war against Iran, conditional support for Ukraine, an ambivalent relationship with NATO, heightened surveillance of China. That is not a coherent foreign policy — it is a series of ad hoc responses to successive crises. Congress, in its better moments, attempts to reintroduce a logic of accountability into that chaos.

What the Supreme Court did the same day

On Monday, June 29, 2026, the American Supreme Court was expected to announce additional decisions. That judicial timeline, running simultaneously with diplomatic and military decisions, illustrates the institutional density of this period: the America of 2026 is simultaneously at war, rearming, engaging in constitutional debate about those wars, and preparing for a major international summit. It is a democracy under pressure — one that is holding, for now, but showing its stress lines.

What American rearmament reveals about Trump doctrine

Force first, alliance second: the Trumpian logic laid bare

The sequence of Trump's actions since the start of the Iranian conflict reveals a doctrine that his advisers never formally articulated but that is readable in his actions: America strikes when it decides to strike, uses allies as logistical infrastructure, and presents the bill afterward. During the war against Iran, European bases were used for 5,000 American sorties. NATO allies who refused to participate actively in the conflict were nonetheless mobilized by their membership in the alliance's infrastructure.

That is a vision of NATO as a useful service network rather than a values-based alliance. It is not necessarily wrong in its operational logic — NATO genuinely has value for American military operations. But it strips away what gives the alliance lasting strength: democratic legitimacy, shared decision-making, member consent. Trump treats those elements as bureaucratic obstacles to his freedom of action. That is where the disagreement with European allies runs deepest.

The 14,000 munitions figure as a lesson for the future

The 14,000 strike munitions used in Iran must be read against a comparison: Ukraine consumes considerable quantities of artillery shells, anti-air missiles, and precision munitions every month. The difference is that the war in Ukraine has been going on since 2022. What Iran consumed in months of intensive conflict represents a fraction of what a prolonged war of attrition requires. That arithmetic reality is the strongest answer to those who doubt the need for a massive and resilient defense industrial base.

The implications for the Ankara NATO summit

What American rearmament changes about the July 7 negotiations

When NATO leaders gather in Ankara on July 7 and 8, 2026, they will do so in the direct context of this American rearmament sequence. Trump will arrive with impressive figures: $35 billion for THAAD, the Defense Production Act invoked, contracts with GM and Lockheed. He will present himself as the man who fought the war, is rebuilding the arsenal, and is asking allies to do their share.

European allies will arrive with their own figures: 195,000 American jobs supported by their purchases, $300 billion in contracts in the pipeline. The argument will be symmetrical: we buy American, we finance your industry, now deliver the weapons we need. That is a commercial negotiation dressed in collective security language. It is the language the Trump era has imposed on alliance diplomacy.

What Ukraine can hope to extract from that equation

For Ukraine, the hope lies in the conjunction: if American factories run at full capacity to meet European and domestic demand, total volumes produced increase. A portion of those volumes — missiles, defense systems, munitions — can be routed to Kyiv. That is an abundance logic driven by demand. Zelenskyy is in Ankara to ensure his country is in that equation — not as a secondary variable, but as an explicit priority.

The industrial response: between national urgency and production reality

Quadrupling THAAD production: the concrete constraints

The $35 billion contract for Lockheed is a political and financial decision. Its implementation is a far more constrained industrial reality. To quadruple THAAD production, Lockheed must recruit specialized engineers, secure precision electronic component supply chains, and expand or build plants. Each of those steps takes time — time that the darkest scenarios on security in Europe or the Asia-Pacific do not guarantee.

There is also a human skills challenge. Engineers specialized in complex defense systems are not trained in months. They are the product of years of education and experience. The consolidation of the American defense sector since the 1990s has considerably reduced the available pool of experts. The Defense Production Act can direct financial resources but cannot produce engineers by decree.

New technologies as an accelerant: the low-cost interceptor program

On Tuesday, June 24, 2026, the U.S. military unveiled a new low-cost interceptor program as an alternative response to traditional, very expensive interception systems. A THAAD missile costs several million dollars per unit. An enemy drone can cost a few hundred dollars. That economic asymmetry is a structural vulnerability that Ukraine knows well. The new approaches aim to reduce the cost of interception — using lasers, less expensive kinetic kill vehicles, or interceptor drones. That is not a short-term solution, but it is the right direction.

NATO's nuclear expansion debate in the background

The debate over expanded nuclear sharing

Alongside conventional rearmament, a less public but potentially more transformative debate is unsettling NATO: expanded nuclear sharing. According to a 19FortyFive report published in June 2026, NATO is weighing the largest expansion of its nuclear sharing since the Cold War, driven by the Russian threat and doubts about the reliability of American commitment under Trump. If the United States withdraws its collective defense commitment, some European countries — notably in Eastern Europe — want a more direct nuclear deterrence guarantee.

That debate, still largely behind closed doors, represents the deepest transformation of European security architecture in decades. It reflects a fundamental question: can one still rely on Article 5 if the American president is Trump, or a successor with similar convictions? That is a question no one articulates publicly from the podium in Ankara. But it structures the private conversations before and after every formal summit session.

What this means for deterrence doctrine in Europe

Nuclear deterrence in Europe has rested since 1949 on the credibility of the American nuclear umbrella. That credibility is being questioned — not because the United States has formally renounced Article 5, but because the behavior of the Trump administration creates enough uncertainty for allies to consider alternatives. France, with its own independent nuclear force, is discussing a possible extension of its guarantee to European partners. The debate is complex — legally, politically, strategically. But it is happening, which is itself significant.

What allies are doing without the United States: NATO at naval exercises

Exercises off American coasts despite the tensions

According to Reuters, despite political tensions, NATO maintained naval exercises off American coasts. That operational continuity amid political friction reveals an important reality: the alliance's military professionals operate on their own institutional logic, relatively independent of the White House's political moods. NATO generals and admirals continue to plan together, to exercise together, to prepare collective defense scenarios — even when their heads of state are quarreling over budgets and priorities.

That institutional resilience is what keeps NATO functional under Trump. The alliance is not only a political declaration — it is an integrated military apparatus with operational plans, interoperability protocols, and shared communication systems built over seventy years. That cannot be undone by a few speeches, however forceful.

The value of European bases for American operations

The 5,000 American sorties from European bases during the war against Iran that Rutte cited are the empirical demonstration of that value. Europe is not merely an ally to be protected — it is an operational platform for American power projection beyond the Atlantic. Without bases in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, American military operations in the Middle East and Africa would be considerably more expensive and logistically complex.

Tensions within NATO over participation in the Iran war

The allies who didn't participate and their grievances

The war against Iran created significant fractures within NATO. Several members — notably in Western Europe — refused to participate actively in the military operations, citing constitutional constraints, economic interests in Tehran, or simply reluctance to engage in a conflict they did not consider consistent with the Alliance's defensive mission. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had explicitly mentioned Trump's "disappointment" at allied reactions to his Middle East operations — a signal that he intended to put the issue on the Ankara agenda.

That friction is real and deep. NATO's Article 5 concerns the collective defense of alliance territory — not offensive operations outside the area. Trump used European bases for Middle East operations without formal alliance consultation. Some allies considered that a violation of the treaty's spirit, if not its letter. Others looked the other way to avoid triggering an open crisis. In Ankara, that unresolved question will continue to create backstage tensions.

The question of conditional solidarity

The Iranian precedent raises a fundamental question for NATO's future: if a member triggers an offensive conflict outside the area and uses alliance infrastructure in that context, are other members bound to support it in the name of solidarity? The legal answer is no — Article 5 is defensive. But the political answer is more complex: refusing to help the alliance's most powerful member risks weakening the collective guarantees on which everyone depends. That is a conditional solidarity dilemma that Ankara will not resolve, but must at least formally acknowledge.

What the post-Iran war reveals about the future of security alliances

The geopolitical lesson of accelerated rearmament

The sequence we have observed since June 2026 — war against Iran, stockpile depletion, emergency rearmament, pressure on allies, Ankara summit — reveals something fundamental about the nature of security alliances in the twenty-first century. Deterrence is not a permanent achieved state; it is a permanent effort requiring continuous updating, regular investment, and adaptation to the technologies and doctrines of potential adversaries. Decades of the peace dividend created an illusion of permanence that is proving costly.

For Ukraine, that revelation has a direct and painful meaning: it is fighting in a world where its allies underinvested in their defense for decades and are now trying to catch up during an actual war. The cost of that delay is paid in insufficient resistance, deliveries that come too late, and stockpiles that cannot be shared because they are needed at home. That is not bad will — it is the consequence of a collective decision, made over thirty years, that peace was free.

What the 2026 rearmament should produce by 2030

If the commitments made in 2026 are honored — the 5% of GDP, the arms contracts, the increase in industrial production — NATO in 2030 will be structurally stronger than in 2022. Plants running at full capacity, stockpiles replenished and expanded, supply chains diversified and less dependent on Chinese components. That optimistic scenario is achievable. It is not guaranteed. It depends on political stability in each member country — a particularly difficult variable to predict in the Europe of 2026, with elections approaching in several key nations and populist movements contesting defense spending.

Conclusion: rearming is not winning — but failing to rearm is losing

What the June 2026 sequence reveals about the world order

The week of June 25, 2026 will stand as a visible turning point in the history of Western rearmament. The Defense Production Act invoked, the $35 billion THAAD contract, Rutte's visit to Trump, the summit taking shape in Ankara: that is not a scatter of unrelated events. It is the convergence of a military-industrial reality, an alliance policy, and a war that has lasted more than four years in Europe. The conclusion that imposes itself is not reassuring: the West has begun to rearm seriously, but it starts with a structural deficit that decades of the peace dividend have accumulated.

For Ukraine, waiting at Ankara for concrete commitments, that reality is a daily challenge. Its soldiers are in the field while its allies debate production contracts. Its cities are being struck while American production lines search for their engineers. That gap between urgency and capacity is the structural tragedy of this conflict — and it is that gap that must be narrowed.

What the future of Western security demands

Rearming is necessary. But rearming alone is not sufficient. What is needed is a common doctrine, long-duration commitments, a European defense industry that does not depend exclusively on the vagaries of American electoral cycles. Above all, what is needed is a collective decision that Russia — and by extension China, Iran, North Korea — cannot simply wait for democracies to tire. The history of recent decades is not encouraging about the West's consistency over time. But the history of Ukraine since 2022 — its resistance, its industry, its missiles built under bombardment — is proof that will makes a difference. That is the strongest argument Zelenskyy will carry to Ankara.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

What I know and what I don't

This article is based primarily on a Foreign Policy article of June 25, 2026 by Rishi Iyengar entitled "Restocking the Pentagon," on Euromaidan Press reporting from June–July 2026, and on contextual analyses from the Military Times and The Guardian. Some Foreign Policy articles are behind a paywall, and my reading is limited to accessible excerpts. The figures cited — 14,000 munitions, $35 billion, 195,000 jobs, $300 billion in orders — are all drawn from identified published sources. I have no internal sources at the Pentagon or the White House.

My editorial position

I am in favor of strong and sustained Western support for Ukraine. I believe American and European rearmament, even when motivated by national interest, is good news for collective security. I am critical of Trump's rhetoric on NATO, but I acknowledge that his concrete decisions — invoking the Defense Production Act, signing massive arms contracts — produce real effects. The gap between his discourse and his actions deserves to be noted, not ignored.

Sources

Primary sources

Foreign Policy — Restocking the Pentagon: Trump urges defense manufacturers to speed up weapons production after the Iran war — June 25, 2026

Euromaidan Press — NATO chief Rutte tells Trump: Europe's arms spending supports 195,000 US jobs, $300bn in orders — July 1, 2026

Military Times — Trump meets munitions makers amid push to replenish weapons stockpiles — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

Foreign Policy — NATO, Trump, Erdoğan: Ankara summit, Europe defense, Russia — June 29, 2026

The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US help if Russia attacks — June 27, 2026

19FortyFive — NATO is weighing the biggest expansion of its nuclear weapons sharing since the Cold War — June 2026